Planning and building automated item checks

In this lesson, we’ll discuss how you might plan out a change workflow before trying to build one in Upchain. We’ll then discuss some of the possibilities that Upchain can provide within a Change request workflow, and then begin configuring item checks into a workflow in Upchain.

Before you start:

Think about the sorts of things you already include in the release process at your organization and write it out in a process flow diagram. 

What is the goal of the workflow at our organization?

In this video, let’s discuss the sorts of things you may wish to include in your workflow and lay out an example workflow here. This will provide the foundation for how we build the workflow in Upchain later on.

Key takeaways

1. Begin by planning out your workflows according to your current business processes. Be sure to plan out both the optimal path in your workflow and account for any steps that can have more than one outcome.
2. Consider using the Object decision primitive to check item attributes and/or missing files and ensure these checks are resolved before continuing.
3. Consider using the System primitive to ensure your assemblies and drawings are up-to-date with the latest model information.
4. Consider using the Decision primitive to add decision points to your workflows that you can assign to individuals or groups of people.
5. Review the Upchain documentation for a summary of each of the primitives available within a Change request workflow.

Configuring item checks into a Change request workflow

In this video, we’ll demonstrate how to configure the primitives we’ll need in the workflow to check our items for missing attributes and drawings, as well as ensuring all assemblies and drawings are up to date with the latest model information.

Key takeaways

1. All workflows must have a Start and Stop primitive, and Update primitives are quite useful to ensure both the item and the Change request statuses are updated appropriately. 
2. The Object decision primitive analyses each item within the Change request against specific criteria you configure, and generates tasks for each item that fails the check. This primitive can further prevent the workflow from continuing until all items pass the criteria.
3. These item checks can include checking for missing or empty attributes, or missing cBOM/drawing files within the items.
4. The System primitive contains many different functions, including a check to ensure that the assemblies and drawings in the Change request reference the latest file versions of the component models.