A workflow is a sequence of activities that mirrors the steps in a business process. It provides a logical, orderly representation of the actual tasks carried out by individuals or systems interacting with a business model. In EmpowerID, workflows serve as the primary method for users to engage with IT resources to achieve specific organizational objectives.
There are three primary layers in a workflow:
Process Layer – This layer represents the logical flow of the activities within a workflow. It defines the sequence and conditions of tasks, decision points, branching, and parallel execution paths.
Data Layer – The data layer captures and manages the information processed throughout the workflow. It includes input and output data, intermediate variables, and any data transformations or manipulations required by the workflow activities.
Presentation Layer – This layer is specific to user-centric workflows that require human interaction. It provides the user interface (UI) through which end-users interact with the workflow, input data, or make decisions.
In the EmpowerID model, users never directly interact with a workflow; rather, they interact with what is known as a request workflow. A request workflow is one of the resource types registered in the EmpowerID Identity Warehouse that is related to resource acquisition and management. A specific request workflow is an Identity Warehouse resource record corresponding to an EmpowerID workflow that is used to control who may interact with the workflow.
A typical EmpowerID workflow is comprised of a number of components (i.e., Forms, Lookups, Operation Activities, Business Rules, Activities etc.). Depending on the purpose of the workflow, not all of these need to be present.