Currently I’m implementing an appraisal process for one of my customers using Nintex Workflow and Nintex Forms.
My initial thought was to create an appraisal form a
nd then create a workflow with a number of Request Data tasks as the form bounces between the reviewee and the reviewer.
I have however always found that tasks quite quickly become a pain to manage. Especially in processes that are form driven rather than workflow driven.
So I started to introduce some additional fields on my appraisal form content type.
- Complete Y/N
- Completion Comment
- Appraisal Status
Then I replaced each task with an update item task in which the Complete is set to No and a wait for Complete to be set to Yes. Additionally I’m sending out an email alerting the user that they need to do something to the form.
In my process I’m still having some tasks, however I’ve reduced the number of tasks a lot now. At the final part of my process the reviewee is asked to accept the review. As this doesn’t require any updates to the form I’ve decided to implement this as a task.
My Conclusions
It’s not always a good idea to default to tasks when user interaction is part of a workflow, however it is also not good to avoid tasks all the time. In the past when I implemented task heavy processed I ended up copying data between task and workflow item resulting in complex workflows.
Do you have any different experiences then please leave a comment below.