NEW - Manage your Collaboration Workflows

Summary

What are Collaboration Workflows, and why adopt them?

Collaboration workflows provide a structured process to guide business users through content editing and review before it is activated on any channel. They ensure the consistency and quality of your product data, increase collaboration, and boost productivity. Every workflow can be tailored to meet your internal organization's specific requirements.

While workflows are a powerful tool for product data enrichment, they are not a one-size-fits-all solution for your entire catalog. Instead, workflows are most effective when applied strategically to address particular needs or empower specific teams. For instance, use workflows to:

Support a subsidiary, legal department, or onboarding of new team members,
Organize the launch of a new product range or market-specific campaign,
Manage specific tasks like reviewing AI-generated content or focusing on products with the lowest consumer ratings.

Workflows allow you to tackle these targeted scenarios while keeping your broader enrichment processes agile and efficient.
These workflows are the required steps for your product data enrichment. Products move through each workflow step and are assigned to users to complete specific tasks.

🎓 Want a quick and interactive walkthrough?

Learn more on Collaboration Workflows thanks to our dedicated training to better know how to use this feature.

Course time: 15min

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How to set up Collaboration Workflows?

Go to Workflows, then Settings.
Click on Create workflow, then give a descriptive label and a code to your workflow.

To set up workflows, you need the appropriate roles' permissions to Manage Workflows Settings.

Also, remember:

for any assigned user: activate roles' permissions for View My Workflows to allow workflow steps and pending tasks' management.
for any team lead or manager: activate roles' permissions for View Dashboard to allow workflow monitoring.

Please take a look at the Manage the interface and actions accesses > Rights on settings > Permissions on Workflows article.

You can create up to 100 workflows to reflect your processes.

Define the subset of products to include in the workflow

From the Product Selection tab, select the attributes and system fields to filter products you want to include in your workflow. Keep in mind it’s a ‘and’ condition.

Products move through each workflow step and are assigned to users to complete specific tasks.

Use the “Update” criteria to select products created or updated within a specific time frame. This helps streamline enrichment for new product portfolios, collections, or campaigns.

As you add new filters, a product counter shows how many products meet your criteria. Once you enable it, it will automatically add products to your workflow. Each product becomes a task to be completed by the assignee.

If you don't define any criteria, your entire PIM catalog is included in the workflow

The product counter reflects the products that meet your new selection criteria. It does not include products in progress or already completed in the workflow.

The counter can display up to 50,000 products but will prioritize the most recently updated ones. If there are more, they will not enter the workflow right away. Once a product has completed all the steps, then the recently created or updated products matching the selection criteria will enter the workflow.

If a product value changes (e.g. status, family, category or any other attribute value used as a filter) and no longer meets the selection criteria, it will stay in the workflow until it is completed.

To add a list of identified products to a workflow, you can use the Bulk action Add to workflow option available in the Product Grid or any saved View. To do so, make sure you have the required permissions to Manage Workflow Settings.

Proceeding that way will add this specific set of products to the selected workflow (with Product Selection criteria unchanged), enabling assigned contributors to work on both sets within the same workflow tasks. Otherwise, to create a workflow that only includes manually added products, you shall configure the workflow's Product Selection criteria to accommodate this (e.g., "Status = Enabled" & "Status is Disabled") and ensure no products are automatically selected.

Set-up workflows steps

Please take a moment to outline your data enrichment process steps before you set it in Akeneo PIM. Steps can be based on user expertise, department, specific areas of responsibility, or localization.

From the Step settings tab, you can create your workflow steps.

Click on Create step.
Add a descriptive label and a code.
Chose the step Type: Enrichment or Review

Enrichment Step: This step allows assigned users to sequentially process product tasks by adding or editing data. Once the tasks are complete, users can mark them as done and advance them to the next step in the workflow.
Review Step: This step enables back-and-forth and feedback loops to be integrated into workflows to ensure data accuracy and consistency. Assigned reviewers can sequentially approve or reject product tasks with comments if needed, or fix minor corrections to the product data. After the review is complete, tasks can be forwarded to the next step in the workflow.

Here are some examples of workflows that include at least one Review step, which might support with your tailored used case:

A very simple workflow consisting of a single Review step to control content entering Akeneo PIM: for example, AI-generated contents, product data imported from suppliers or any other third-party sources (apps). Simply design a workflow with a Product Selection based on at least one attribute provided by AI or another source, then attach a Review step to assign all the attributes populated by this source to a user for review, correction, and validation to ensure it meets your quality standards before product can be activated.
A Review step that allow revising and improving product data based on a subset of products directly filtered from the Product Grid and added to a workflow through a bulk action. This can support the review, control, validation or correction on specific products based upon their IDs or their completeness, quality score or spelling quality.
A workflow with multiple Enrichment steps and one or more intermediate Review steps to check and ensure the quality and relevance of the product data contents throughout the collaboration process. To do so, you can basically design Review steps with all or part of the earlier enriched Attributes or Attributes groups assigned to the reviewer.
A workflow with enrichment steps followed by multiple levels of reviews or approvals. For instance, a first Review step assigned to a department manager, followed by a second Review step assigned to a Go-to-market responsible or to a regulatory service for highly regulated products.

If you need to lock the product's activation, we recommend adding a specific action in the final review step. You can assign the reviewer a dedicated task such as:

setting the product's categorization,
enabling its status attribute,
or assigning a specific mandatory attribute like "Go Live" or “Go to Market.”

To define the step's details, you can:

Add a short description to share instructions with the assignee,
Add an allotted time in days for the assignee to complete this step for each product.

Setting realistic timelines for each workflow step will help prevent bottlenecks and ensure the timely delivery of enriched product data.
The allotted time will generate a tentative due date for each product to be done.
It will update each step status accordingly to raise alerts for urgent products (3 days remaining or less), or late products (1 day or more).

To define the assignees:

Choose the User group,
Select one or more assigned Users from the User group.

A user group gathers users responsible for the same product scope. It is meant to reflect your organization and the scope of responsibilities of each PIM contributor based on the 3 key concepts:

Categories: which products can a user view and edit
Locales: in which locale(s) can a user view or edit product information
Attribute groups: which scope of the product information a user can view or edit (ie: product specifications, marketing information, standards and specifications, studio, marketplace...)

For each user group, we advise to setup a relevant label that reflects these 3 components (ie: EN Women Copywriters, EN Kids Content Managers, FR Pharmaceuticals Product Managers, DE Cosmetics Category Managers...).

To learn more about user groups, please refer to the What is a user group? and Build your user groups articles.

You have to start by selecting at least one assignee before you can access the task scope and attributes.

We recommend choosing a limited number of users for your step. It provides real value to your enrichment flow.

When assigning users, remember that their catalog's access rights are inherited from their User group Allowed to View/Edit/Own products). The catalog's access rights on both Locales and Attribute groups will depend on the selected User group. Allowed-to-View-products permission only allows the selected User group and its users to review attribute values in the step, but not to complete or impact the attribute count.

If you chose a Category filter in the Product Selection, please ensure the assignees in this workflow have the appropriate catalog access rights to see the products in the task list, and complete the product enrichment.

Remember, if the admin changes any of the User group's catalog access rights while the workflow is enabled, it may cause errors in the product selection, the task settings and/or the full progress of the product in the workflow. Please refer to our Set rights on your catalog article if you need support.

To define a scope:

Choose at least one Channel,
Choose at least one enabled Locale.

To define attributes to enrich:

Choose an Attribute Group.
Select one or more Attributes from the Attribute group.
If you want to assign required attributes, select All required attributes option (you can of course also assign optional attributes, selecting them in the Attributes selector)

If you chose a Family filter in the product selection, make sure the assignee has the appropriate catalog access rights to be able to enrich the selected attributes. Please refer to our Set rights on your catalog article if you need support.

You can add steps for categorization, image management, or association enrichment without assigning any attribute groups. In this case, we recommend providing a detailed description of the expected outcome.

Per step, you are limited to:

1 User group as assignee per step
5 Channel.s & 10 associated active Locale.s per step
10 Attribute Groups per step

Once you set up your first step, you can continue creating the next ones by clicking through the Back to step settings button. Each new step is added automatically following the previous step, and each step depends on the completion of the previous one, sequentially.

Here is an example of a new product workflow:

You can add up to 20 steps per workflow to reflect your product enrichment process.

To reorder the steps in your workflow, you can simply drag and drop any step to its new position. This will not affect any of the step settings, criteria or assignments. However, please note that you can only reorder steps when the workflow is disabled.

To delete a step, hover over its name and click on the Delete step icon, only possible while the workflow is disabled.

To delete a workflow, either hover over its name and click on the Delete workflow icon or edit the workflow and click on the three dots, then select Delete workflow. Deleting a workflow will immediately delete all related steps and tasks from the assignees' dashboards (no longer visible).

Enable a workflow

Once you configured as many steps as needed, you are ready to activate your workflow. To do so, click on the Enable Workflow button.

Once the workflow is enabled, any product that meets the selection criteria will be automatically sent to the first step and assigned to the relevant assignee, visible in the user's My Workflows dashboard. Displaying the product information to the assignees may require a brief moment, especially when it comes to product variants.

Duplicate a workflow

To duplicate a workflow, either hover over its name and click on the Duplicate workflow icon or edit the workflow and click on the three dots, then select Duplicate workflow.

When you duplicate a workflow, it will replicate all the criteria for product selection and step settings from the original workflow. To differentiate it from the original workflow, you can add a new label and unique code. The duplicated workflow will be disabled by default so that you can make changes to the product selection, step settings, or labels to make it more specific.

Update an enabled workflow

After you’ve enabled the workflow, you can edit the product selection criteria. The original products included in your workflow will not be impacted. This new product selection will only be applied to the new products entering the workflow. The new products will be added to your current selection, and will start the workflow from step one.

After you’ve enabled the workflow, you can edit the details of existing steps, but you cannot create new steps, delete them, or change their order in the workflow. Changes to steps will be immediately visible to users if the workflow is enabled.

How to Manage My Workflows

Keep track of my pending tasks

My Workflows board enables business users to keep track of their assigned workflow steps and pending tasks from one place, including editing, reviewing, or validating product data.

Go to the Workflows menu entry, then My Workflows.

To manage your assigned workflow steps, you need the appropriate roles' permissions to View my workflows. Please refer to the Manage the interface and actions accesses > Rights on settings > Permissions on Workflows article.

The board provides real-time activity indicators to organize your daily PIM enrichment workload and best prioritize the items to enrich or review. It includes the number of products (simple products or variants) to be completed, their level of priority, and information about who has been assigned.

If the workflow includes enrichment steps and at least one review step, the assigned contributor or content writer can view the number of products rejected by the reviewer. These products will require refinement or correction, as suggested by the Action required tag.

If at least one product's due date is three days or less, an urgent priority tag will be displayed on the corresponding step, indicating the number of products close to the due date.

If the due date is exceeded, a late priority tag will show how many products are already late.

If there are some issues with your assigned workflow steps, you cannot access your task list. We advise you to contact your PIM admin to unlock it. This may be related to an issue on the assigned user or user group, channel, local or attribute groups (most probably deleted or deactivated).

Manage my Task list

When you click on a workflow step in the board, you will see a list of simple products and variants (similar to the ungrouped view of the product grid) containing their ID, image, label, attributes filled progress bar, and product due date detailed in the Task list.

Products to be populated or reviewed are sorted by the oldest or most urgent first by default. The attributes filled progress bar shows how many attributes are assigned to you and if they already have data. If your administrator has set an allotted time for the step, the product due date shows the indicative deadline for you to enrich the dedicated product. If the product's due date is three days or less, an urgent tag will be displayed. If the due date is exceeded, a late tag will show.

If the workflow includes at least one review step, the Action Required tag at the top of the task list helps you identify rejected products.

The attributes progress bar displays the total of how many attributes are assigned to you compared to the ones already filled with data.

“0/11” means you're assigned to enrich 11 attributes, and none of them have data
“4/11” means that among those 11, 4 attributes already have data and 7 attributes don't
“11/11” means that all already have data.

Some additional details on the attributes filled count:

If your user group only has Allowed to View products catalog access right on the related category, then you are not able to edit or complete the attribute values, nor see the attribute count evolve (hence, only review attribute values).
For localizable and scopable attributes, the count shows the addition of all localizable and/or scopable values.
For product models with variants, the attribute count shows the total assigned attribute values, whatever the common or variation levels.
For a table attribute, by default, we consider the whole table as “1” attribute and count it as complete once one cell is filled, hence displaying “1/1”. Still, if you have customized its completeness at the column level, then the table is considered as complete as soon as one cell is filled. Please refer to our Manage multidimensional data in a table if you need support.
For a price attribute, the count relies on the number of currencies defined for completeness.
For multi-select attributes, the count shows “1” as soon as the first option is selected, whatever the number of options.

If some products assigned to you cannot be viewed in your task list, this is because you don't have the appropriate catalog access rights (Allowed to View/Edit/Own products based on the product category). Please contact your PIM admin to unlock them.

Suppose you have multiple products with all attributes already completed or reviewed, and you fully trust the accuracy of the previously edited values. In that case, you can choose to bulk Send done products to the next step without editing them sequentially in the product edit form. This action will remove them from your task list and forward them to the next assignee and step in the workflow.

If you are assigned to a review step and have full confidence in the quality and accuracy of the previously edited contents, you can choose to perform a bulk action to Send approved products at once. This solution can be useful for Gen-AI content or translation. In such cases, you might opt to review a sample of the products, and once you're pretty sure the quality of the generated data meets your standards, you can streamline the approval process for the rest of the products in your task list to boost productivity. The approved products will then either move to the next step in the workflow or be marked as completed if they are part of the final step.

If you want to export products available in your task list to review or complete the assigned attributes externally, you can select some or all of the products and use the Quick export button (XLXS only). You will get one XLXS spreadsheet per assigned channel from the process tracker.

If certain assigned attributes are accessible via quick export but not through sequential editing in the user interface, this is due to the product family.

Contributor: Perform a product task on the product page

As an assigned contributor, when you click on a product in the list, you access the product page through sequential editing, automatically focusing on the attributes assigned to you. You can change the filter from Display all my assigned attributes to any other attribute display if needed. You can rely on the Task details panel on the left for additional context. This is particularly useful for reminding you of a workflow step description or instruction and reviewing the attributes filled for each Channel/Locale pair.

Once you are happy with your copy, Save its record and view the attribute count and progress bar evolve.

Marking the product as Done and next immediately saves its record, pushes it to the next step, and moves you to the next product of your task list sequentially. This process will continue until the product has gone through every step in the workflow.

If you need to come back to your Task list, click on the Return to task list button.

If the workflow includes one or more Review steps to verify the previously populated data, the product can be either approved or rejected. In case of a rejected product, it will be sent back to a previous enrichment step and marked with an Action Required tag. The attributes that need revision or correction will be flagged with an alert icon and may include comments explaining the reason for rejection. This helps the contributor acknowledge the change to be done and revise the edit before resubmitting it for review with the Done & Next button.

Reviewer: Approve or Reject a product task on the product page

As an assigned reviewer, when you click on a product in the list, you access the product page through sequential editing with an automatic focus on the attributes assigned to you that require your review, correction or validation. You can rely on the Task details panel on the left for additional guidance. This is particularly useful for reminding you of a workflow step description or instruction and checking the attributes to be verified for each Channel/Locale pair.

If you are happy with the copy, you can simply Approve its record, and move to the next product on your task list.

If you want to make a quick fix on your own, you can edit the attributes and Approve its record, as soon as you have the proper user group's permissions.

If you are not satisfied with the copy, you can send the product back using the Reject button. You can either refuse the entire product without specifying particular details or select the specific attributes that are not accepted. Optionally, you can add a comment to explain your reasons and guide the contributor in revising or correcting the product data. You can make as many back-and-forths as needed until the product data is perfectly correct and qualitative. When rejecting the product, you will be asked to select one of the previous steps to send it back to the accurate step and assigned contributor.

During the collaboration and exchanges between the contributor and the reviewer, only the most recent comment will be visible. Also note that throughout the back-and-forth exchanges, product data is directly saved and updated in the product record. If you wish to view the different versions of an attribute's values, you can refer to the History tab of the product.

Good to know: Impact of permission settings on the product category

In the Akeneo PIM platform, the Workflows feature has been introduced to enhance collaboration and streamline feedback loops, all while accelerating your time-to-market. This feature offers a user-friendly experience that seamlessly guides contributors and reviewers through their product tasks within a unified workspace.

To enable a seamless, efficient and integrated feedback loop in a unified workspace, the Workflows feature does not allow the creation of Drafts and Proposals. However, to ensure alignment with user permission settings on the product category, the Collaboration Workflows feature is designed to:

Align user experience for Contributor roles: to ensure consistency with the product page, contributors with Edit permissions on a product category cannot directly input or save product values in the product record. To do so, you need Own permissions on the product category.
Restrict direct edits for content accuracy: users can only view product data in read-only mode, similar to having View permissions on the product category. This restriction prevents unintended modifications.
Support collaborative feedback for Reviewer roles: users cannot edit but still can add comments to provide feedback while rejecting a product. This feedback loop supports collaboration without compromising the integrity of the product record.

A few more things to know about Collaboration Workflows…

One product, multiple workflows

A product can only go through a workflow once. It’ll go through all the steps. Also, the same product can be part of multiple workflows.

For instance, if the product values of a product are updated during the enrichment step, or any other task in the PIM, this product could then meet the product selection criteria of another workflow. In this case, it would start the new workflow from step 1.

Sequential editing

When editing variants using the sequential edit feature on the product page, you can navigate to the common level at any time. However, when you click on the Done and Next button, you will be automatically directed to the next variant of your task list.

The widget displays essential details regarding your assigned workflow steps and associated pending tasks, categorized by their priority level.

Under the "Products to enrich" section, you can view the quantity of products awaiting completion, categorized as Late, Urgent, On track, or No due date. You can promptly handle your tasks by clicking on Go to workflows.

In the "To get started" section, we recommend up to two workflow steps that may require your immediate attention. By clicking on one of the boxes, which serves as a shortcut, you can efficiently manage your task list for the selected workflow.

Receive a weekly email notification recap

Every Monday, all assignees will receive an email summarizing their assigned workflows and pending tasks (as soon as the workflow is activated and in production). This weekly recap will include the total number of products to enrich or review with their level of priority. It is a helpful way to start the week and be on top of all pending tasks.

How to monitor all workflows Dashboard?

The Workflows Dashboard empowers efficient oversight and management of ongoing enrichment processes. It enables any PIM owner, team leader, or manager to effortlessly monitor company or team workflows from one centralized location with just a glance.

Go to the Workflows menu entry, then Dashboard.

To monitor workflows, you need the appropriate roles' permissions to View dashboard. Please refer to the Manage the interface and actions accesses > Rights on settings > Permissions on Workflows article.

The dashboard provides comprehensive insights on all active workflows, including details such as to which workflows business users are engaged in, the number of pending product tasks, any late or urgent alerts, and the individual assignees. These real-time activity indicators help quickly identify any risk of slowdown or bottleneck in the product data enrichment process.

Clicking on any of the workflows gives access to additional details that can help identify or anticipate an excessive workload, optimize the organization of your product enrichment tasks, or facilitate collaboration and communication among product data teams.

In short, you can make informed decisions to accelerate your time to market and continuously improve the efficiency of your Collaboration Workflow.