KEW Overview

 

 

Kuali Enterprise Workflow (KEW), a module with the Kauli Rice system, is a general-purpose, content-based electronic routing infrastructure or workflow engine. It is primarily used to automate the routing of electronic documents (e-docs) to individuals and workgroups for approval, although it can also be used to orchestrate complex processes between business components and applications. Approval routing is based on institutional or departmental business rules and policies.

Through the use of a centralized workflow engine, you can access and search for many types of e-docs from various functional areas through a single interface via your Action List and Doc Search. The Route Log allows you to follow the progress of given documents through the approval process. Routing Reports allow you to view the projected routing of a document with a particular set of data or attributes.

 

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For step-by-step procedures on basic e-doc routing actions, see “

 

Routing a Document” on page Error! Bookmark not defined. in KC Overview > Common E-Doc Operations.  For more detailed technical information about KEW, see “https://test.kuali.org/confluence/display/KULRICE/KEW+Technical+Guide” in the Kuali Rice wiki.

 

Key Concepts

•      Workflow – The movement of a document around an organization for sign-off, notification, and execution of actions.

•      Routing – The path on which a document will travel to its destination.

•      Recipients – Research administration processes involve routes that include researchers, departments, central administration offices, and review committees.

•      Proposal Routing – Allows for researcher certifications, department and college approvals, special reviews, and delivery to sponsored programs office.

•      Award Routing – Allows for the ability to route different parts of the award independently (award, time & money, award budget) while still sequencing the Award document as a combined entity; to allow unit administrators/Pis to create and/or modify budget and route for central office approval; and to blanket approve Award documents for internal actions.

•      Protocol Routing – Allows for the ability to route from researcher to IRB administrator with different rules for initial protocol version revisions, amendments, and renewals; to route from IRB administrator to reviewer and back; and to route many correspondence types from IRB administrator to researcher.

Key Features

•      Flexible Workflow Engine - Support for sequential, parallel and dynamic routing paths. Extensible architecture allows for easy customization.

•      Content-Based Routing - Routing decisions can be made based on XML document content. XPath and other XML tools can be used to determine routing without writing code.

•      Pluggable Components - Components can be deployed to the system at runtime using Plugins. Hot deployable class loading space provides a robust enterprise ready deployment environment for workflow code.

•      People in the Routing Process - Documents can be routed to individuals, groups or roles.

•      Action List - Displays a list of each user's pending items which require his/her attention, such as documents which are awaiting approval. Users can configure whether they receive emails when the document enters their Action List.

•      Document Search and Route Log - Allows users to search for documents and see an audit trail of what has happened to the document during its life cycle.

•      Document Search Customization - Document based content can be associated with workflow data and searched on using our Document Search screens. Have a single place for all of your workflow document searches.

•      EDocLite - EDocLite allows quick document building and integration with workflow using only XML.

•      Rules System - Provides a mechanism for defining business rules which govern how a document routes. Rule screens give functional users ability to maintain the business rules for their applications. Documents affected by rule changes are re-routed real time.

•      Notes and Attachments - Notes and Attachments can be attached to documents using KEW's notes and attachments services out of the box. Institution based attachment and note services can be used by overriding our default services.

•      Person Services - Maintains users of the system.  You can use the Out-of-the-Box service or override with your institution's user services.

•      Group Services - Maintains groups of users.  You can use the Out-of-the-Box service or override with your institution's group services.

•      Transactions - All transactions and documents route in a JTA transaction.

•      Web Service API - All system functions are available through Web Service APIs.

•      Security - Web service calls can be authorized using digital signatures.

•      Scalability - Can be clustered and run on multiple machines to allow for horizontal scalability.

•      Embeddable Engine - Workflow engine can be embedded in an application as well as ran as a standalone service.

•      Embeddable Web Application - Web portion can be embedded in an application as a Struts module. Run the Action List, Document Search, Route Log, Rules System and more from within your application with minimal effort.

•      Service Bus Integration - Integration with the Kuali Service Bus (KSB). Override any service from within workflow by having workflow grab the service from the bus or use workflow's pluggable components to deploy bus enabled services.

•      JMX Support - A set of management functions are exposed through JMX.

•      Spring Based Integration - KEW is designed with Spring based integration in mind.