How Do I Test a Workflow?

What is the Workflow Simulator?

Kuali Build has the ability to streamline testing of complex workflow processes.  Traditionally, testing workflow processes can be very labor-intensive. The Workflow Simulator reduces this burden significantly, ensuring you and your team can feel confident in quickly completing and launching new processes.

Our Workflow Simulator quickly helps you identify any issues in each step of your workflow, including who you’re routing approvals to, custom email notifications, and parallel branch logic.   Below are a few common issues that may be easily overlooked:

• You assign an approval to a department chair instead of a faculty member, resulting in an incorrect approval routing.
• You accidentally misspell a word in a custom email notification, causing process quality to suffer.
• You choose the wrong routing criteria in a complex parallel branch, causing the branch to not route as expected.

The Workflow Simulator will quickly help you catch small errors like the ones above, improving the quality and launch-time of every future process.

Begin Test

To launch the Workflow Simulator, switch the toggle button at the top center of the Workflow Builder screen from “Design” to “Test.”

The workflow simulator screen will show on the right side of your screen. To begin the workflow testing process, select Run Test.

Complete Form

Select which user would you like to impersonate by selecting the dropdown next to the Current User.

The Current User field at the top of the simulator will always show the user who would be experiencing the respective step, and the form will mirror the experience of the selected user completing the form.

Three users are available to test as form submitters:

• App Admin (You): The user using the Workflow Simulator.
• Anonymous Person: User that has not logged in to Kuali Build.
• Generic Logged-in Person: User that has logged in to Kuali Build.

The Workflow Simulator may highlight potential issues of the form, such as if a field is required as part of the workflow but is not a requirement for completion of the form. Only fields affecting the workflow need to be filled out in order for the simulator to work. All other fields can be ignored even if they are marked as required.

Once all highlighted fields have been completed, click Submit. 

Testing Steps

The Workflow Simulator will proceed to test each workflow step:

Approvals

Approval steps will show the email notification the assigned user would receive as part of the workflow process. Verify the Current User and To: email address matches the expected recipient.

You will be given the chance to interact with the email as the user would by clicking ‘Begin Review’. Alternatively, you can click next to proceed to the next approval view in Kuali Build.

• Note: The Workflow Simulator only works with approvals that are set up to accept the first approver. Approvals designed where a percentage of approvers must respond is not supported at this time. 

You can approve or deny to verify the workflow meets expected behavior.

Acknowledge

Acknowledge steps are handled very similarly to approval steps. You will be shown the step email notification and be able to verify the recipient is correct. Following, you can review and acknowledge the step.

Notifications

Email notifications will mirror the notification designated for the selected recipient. Verify the correct recipient, subject, email copy, and custom variables are correct.

Branch Steps

Route testing supports simulating different workflow routes to ensure the logic and steps within each route are error-free.

Complete the form with information specific to a route in your workflow.  When testing parallel branches, the simulator will route the testing scenario based upon the information completed in the submitted form. 

For example, if my route logic is dependent on the selection of the English Department, this route will be tested if I select the English Department in my original form submission. In order to test another route, you can begin the Workflow Simulator again, modifying the form submission to match logic in another route.

When testing different routes, the route currently being tested will be highlighted at the top of the Simulator. In the screenshot below, Route 2 is being tested so it is highlighted. 

The route will follow the logic as outlined in the workflow steps, such as continuing on approval or stopping on denial.

Integrations

The Workflow Simulator will test the integration activity to confirm data is routing to the correct location and updating as expected.

As a note, this is an advanced component that is helpful for individuals with some familiarity with API structure and the integration design.

When testing, the Simulator will show the URL the document will be sent to during the step.

You may review the JSON, if desired, to validate the code of the information being sent is as expected for the integration to function.