Stakeholders Who Are Also Users: User, User Group, Position
Whenever possible give your stakeholders user accounts in PerfectApps. These stakeholders handle app data, make workflow decisions, follow up on app requests and manage reporting. In addition, these users can be assigned to positions and user groups.
Assigning roles to positions or groups, instead of specific users, helps mitigate maintenance of the workflow as staff changes occur.
Stakeholders Who Are Not Users: E-mail Taken From a Field
Stakeholders in the workflow are not required to be users in the system. Some stakeholders will remain unknown to you other than an e-mail address and some perfunctory data. For example, a respondent to a public survey will not need to have a user account.
Use this table to determine which option is most suitable for the role you are mapping.
Method |
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|
None |
No maintenance. |
No notifications can be sent to the role. |
User |
Quick and easy. |
If that user leaves the organization or changes functions within the organization, you have to come into the app and change the user. |
User-Group |
Allows several people to be notified at once. |
Consider the implications of notifying a group of people. All members of the group will be notified and the first one into the app will determine what happens next. This is often an advantage in queuing scenarios. |
Position |
This is a robust way of mapping a role to a user. You can set up the way users are assigned to positions centrally within PerfectApps. If someone leaves a position, all you have to do is to assign the new user to that position. |
Only one user at a time can be assigned to a position. If the user assigned to that position leaves the organization or changes functions, you will have to update the position to reflect the change. You would not have to update the workflow, however. |
E-mail Taken from a Field, Fixed E-mail Address |
Use this option if you do not or cannot have a user registered in the system. This gives flexibility where needed and is also useful if you need to send an e-mail to someone who may never or rarely use PerfectApps or is outside your organization and you simply want to send them an e-mail notification without any need to access the app. |
You should avoid using this option when you can easily define a user through a position or group. |
 |
Mapping roles in this way is not full and final. There are options for overriding roles when creating notifications. |
See also: Workflow Stages
Return to: Adding Workflow, Designing an App
