Building an Automation Workflow

Workflow developers in Luma Automation use Workflow Designer to build and automate Business Process workflows. Workflow designer enables developers with powerful features to build and design processes, human workflows, decision tables, and decision requirements diagrams. Using BPMN notations, developers can orchestrate and deploy complex Automation Workflows that may include many various steps and components, connecting to different endpoints across different technologies.

An Automation Workflow can be executed through various supported systems such as a Luma Virtual Agent or any activity (such as resolution, closure) of a ticket in your ITSM system. The workflows can take user inputs, evaluate rules and connect to a target system to execute a configured task.

Planning the Workflow

Based on the business process, various components are used to build the Automation workflow. Before building the workflow, the workflow designer should plan the workflow. Following are the steps followed in building a Workflow:

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Identifying Prerequisities

The first step of the workflow is to identify the prerequisites. The workflow developer should determine:

• Tasks to be executed as part of the workflow. These are the steps in the business process. Components such as Service Task, Script task, and XOR Gateway are added to replicate the tasks and connected in sequence to replicate the logic.

• Input Variables or Information required to execute the tasks. Identify the information required to execute the business process. These could be the information requested to the end-user or passed to the workflow by the skill as soon as the workflow is executed. This information could be an input for any step in the workflow. For example,

  1. For the Ticket Creation process, issue description is the input parameter.

  2. For Password Reset, the User’s Account Id is the input parameter.

  For more information, refer to Define Workflow-Input-Parameters.

• Operations - Integration endpoints that are part of the workflow. Identify the third-party integration required to execute the business process. Each Operation refers to a specific task performed as part of the workflow. Operations are created based on API available through the connecting application. For example,

  1. Logging a ticket in ISM

  2. Validate User in AD

  3. Send a Channel Notification

  4. Sending Email

  When creating an Operation, associated Application and Instance should be configured in the tenant. For more information, refer to Integration Operations.

Design Workflow

Once the prerequisites are identified, we can start designing the workflow. On the Workflow designer, you can add the various workflow elements in sequence to replicate the business process. In an Automation workflow, you can connect to a third-party system to perform a task, add rule-based conditions or execute a custom script.

For more information refer to Design Automation Workflow.

Test Workflow

Before the workflow is made available for the end-users, the developers should validate the workflow as expected. Luma Automation allows the workflow developers to execute and test the workflow. A workflow can be tested directly by the Workflow designer or through a skill.

For more information, refer to Test and Execute Workflow.

Trigger Workflow

Once tested, the workflow is ready for use. Add the Automation workflow to the conversation flow to execute it through a skill.

For more information, refer to Execute an Automation Service from a Skill.