Workflows ¶

Contents

Workflows

Introduction ¶

DCWorkflow product manages the default Plone workflow system.

Workflow state is not directly stored on the object. Instead, separate portal_workflow tool must be used to access workflow state. Workflow look-ups involve extra database fetch.

Creating workflows ¶

The recommended method is use portal_workflow user interface in Zope Management Interface to construct the workflow through-the-web and then you can export it using GenericSetup’s portal_setup tool.

Include necessarty parts from exported workflows.xml and workflows folder in your add-on product GenericSetup profile (add-on folder profiles/default).

Assigning the workflow to a particular content type ¶

This is done by workflows.xml. You can edit it online in portal_workflows in Zope Management Interface.

Getting the current workflow state ¶

Example:

workflowTool = getToolByName(self.portal, "portal_workflow")
# Returns workflow state object
status = workflowTool.getStatusOf("plone_workflow", object)
# Plone workflows use variable called "review_state" to store state id
# of the object state
state = status["review_state"]
assert state == "published", "Got state:" + str(state)

Changing workflow state ¶

You cannot directly set the workflow to any state, but you must push it through legal state transitions.

Security warning: Workflows may have security assertations which are bypassed by admin user. Always test your workflow methods using a normal.

Example:

from Products.CMFCore.WorkflowCore import WorkflowException

portal.invokeFactory("SampleContent", id="sampleProperty")

workflowTool = getToolByName(context, "portal_workflow")
try:
    workflowTool.doActionFor(portal.sampleProperty, "submit")
except WorkflowException:
    # Workflow exception is risen if the state transition is not available
    # (the sampleProperty content is in a workflow state which
    # does not have "submit" transition)
    pass

Gets the list of ids of all installed workflows ¶

Useful to test if a particular workflow is installed:

# Get all site workflows
ids = workflowTool.getWorkflowIds()
self.failUnless("link_workflow" in ids, "Had workflows " + str(ids))

Getting default workflow for a portal type ¶

Get default workflow for the type:

chain = workflowTool.getChainForPortalType(ExpensiveLink.portal_type)
self.failUnless(chain == ("link_workflow",), "Had workflow chain" + str(chain))

Getting workflows for an object ¶

How to test which workflow the object has:

# See that we have a right workflow in place
workflowTool = getToolByName(context, "portal_workflow")
# Returns tuple of all workflows assigned for a context object
chain = workflowTool.getChainFor(context)

# there must be only one workflow for our object
self.failUnless(len(chain) == 1)

# this must must be the workflow name
self.failUnless(chain[0] == 'link_workflow', "Had workflow " + str(chain[0]))

Disabling workflow for a content type ¶

If content type doesn’t have a workflow it uses its parent container security settings. By default, content types Image and File have no workflow.

Workflow can be disabled by setting the workflow setting empty in portal_workflow in ZMI.

Example how to do it with GenericSetup workflows.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<object name="portal_workflow" meta_type="Plone Workflow Tool">
 <property
    name="title">Contains workflow definitions for your portal</property>
 <bindings>
  <!-- Bind nothing for there content types -->
  <type type_id="Image"/>
  <type type_id="File"/>
 </bindings>
</object>