Configure Workflow Actions

 Take Control

   Estimated Read Time: 13 minutes

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Sections in this article:

• What is a Workflow Action?
  • Manual vs Automatic Actions
• Enable an Action on a Phase
• Available Workflow Actions
  • Contract Actions
  • Vendor Actions
  • eNegotiate Actions
  • eSignature Actions
• Additional Action Settings
  
  • Edit AutoAction Values
    • Assigning Contract Owners
  • Submit Card on Action
  • Update Form on Action
• FAQs

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What is a Workflow Action?

A workflow action is a task performed within a workflow that modifies Gatekeeper records outside the workflow. These actions streamline administrative processes by ensuring data is correctly processed and stored. For example, actions can be used to:

• Create a new contract or vendor record
• Update an existing contract or vendor record
• Upload a new version of a contract document
• Send a document for eSignature

Manual vs Automatic Actions

Workflow actions can be categorised as:

• Manual Actions: Performed by users who open a card and click an action button to perform the relevant task. For example, they might create a contract record manually by reviewing the form data and making updates at the same time. 
• Automatic Actions (AutoActions): Performed automatically by Gatekeeper when a card reaches a phase where they are enabled. For example, a contract record can be created automatically using submitted form data, as well as any pre-set values. 

Enable an Action on a Phase

To learn how to configure actions on a workflow, watch the video demonstration or follow the steps below:

1. From the navigation menu, click Workflows.
2. Click the relevant workflow to edit it.
3. Click the phase that requires an action to edit it.
4. Click Actions, then select the appropriate checkbox to enable the action.

Available Workflow Actions

The following sections will detail the various actions available within a workflow phase.

Contract Actions

These actions will be available to select if the predefined contract section with the core contract metadata fields has been added to the workflow form.

 

Vendor Actions

These actions will be available to select if the predefined vendor section with the core vendor metadata fields has been added to the workflow form.

 

eNegotiate Actions

These actions relate to the eNegotiate process, which allows you to create, redline, publish and sign a contract document via Gatekeeper workflows. See Configure eNegotiate for further details. 

eSignature Actions

These actions can be used when a document is ready for signature. 

 

Additional Action Settings

The following sections detail the settings available after selecting an action.

Edit AutoAction Values

When an AutoAction is enabled, by default Gatekeeper will use the values submitted in the form to execute the action. To amend this, click Edit AutoAction Values to determine whether the action will use the values input by the form submitter, or a pre-set value that you've configured. 

For example, in a contract request workflow you may have an initial Create Contract AutoAction, so could apply a Pipeline status to indicate the contracts haven’t yet been executed.

To configure this: 

1. Click Edit AutoAction Values.
2. Deselect the Take Value from Form checkbox for any fields you want to be hardcoded. 
3. Select the value you want the AutoAction to apply to cards.
4. Click Save to apply the changes.

Assigning Contract Owners

You can use AutoActions to assign an internal contract owner to a record using one or more of the following options:

• Hardcoded Value: sets a specific user
• Take Value from Form: uses the form field input (if provided)
• Card Creator: assigns the user who created the card

If multiple options are selected, the system will assign the owner based on this order:

1. Form value (if provided)
2. Card Creator
3. Hardcoded value

For example, if both Take value from form and Card Creator are selected, the form value will take priority. If that field is blank, the card creator will be used.

Submit Card on Action

Some manual and AutoActions include an additional Submit Card on Action checkbox. When selected, cards on these phases will automatically transition to the next phase when a user completes the action. 

Update Form on Action

Some manual and AutoActions include an additional Update Form on Action checkbox. When selected, the data used to execute the action is synced back to the workflow form. For example, if a Create Contract AutoAction applies a Pipeline status to the new record, the same status will also be populated in the workflow form to keep both in sync.

FAQs

Q: Why is an AutoAction failing?

A: Check the following depending on the action type:

Create/Update Contract or Vendor

• Mandatory core data fields are missing: for example, a Create Contract action requires fields like a contract name and type. Ensure these are either set as mandatory on the form or hardcoded in the action setup.
• The record is currently active in another workflow that has an Update action enabled.
• An owner field is hardcoded to a specific user/the card creator, and their account has since been archived.

Associate a Contract Master Draft

• No file has been uploaded to the workflow card. If using a file attachment field, consider making it mandatory in the form.
• The wrong file type was uploaded in the form, or it is too large. Consider adding guidance to users to ensure they upload a  .docx or .pdf file that does not exceed 50MB.

Generate Draft from Contract

• No eNegotiate templates have been configured, or none match the contract type on the card.

Publish Contract Draft and Convert MS Word to PDF

• No .docx file is associated with the workflow card.

Q: What happens when an AutoAction fails? 

A: If an AutoAction fails, the card will remain on the phase and no changes will be made to any records. An error message will be displayed on the card explaining why the action failed. In some cases, the corresponding manual action can then be used to complete the task instead. For example, if a Create Contract AutoAction fails because a required field has not been populated, you can complete the process manually and provide the missing field.

Notifications are not sent automatically if an AutoAction fails. To avoid failed actions going unnoticed, consider adding a 1-day email reminder to the phase, or configuring a 0-hour SLA to transition the card to another phase.

Q: Why isn't an action available to be enabled?

A: There are a few reasons an action may be unavailable or greyed out on a phase:

• Actions are not available on start phases.
• Required form section not added: some actions will only become available once the relevant predefined data section has been added to the workflow form. For example, vendor actions will not be available unless the predefined Vendor section containing core vendor metadata fields has been added.
• Conflicting action are already configured: certain actions cannot coexist on the same phase. For example, Create Contract and Create Vendor must be configured on separate phases.

Q: Why has an AutoAction overwritten or cleared a field value on the form?

A: This is usually caused by Update Form on Action being enabled on a phase, which writes values back to the form when the AutoAction runs. If a field has been overwritten or cleared unexpectedly, check the following in the AutoAction configuration:

• Whether any fields have a hardcoded value set rather than Take Value From Form.
• Whether Take Value From Form is disabled on the affected fields.