CMS Fiona supports the typical working procedures of creating, verifying, and releasing files. For this, workflows are provided.
With Fiona, a workflow is a sequence of editing and verification steps which refer to the draft version of a file. Each step in a workflow is made by a member of exactly one user group.
Users involved in editing files can find these files in their task list.
A draft version is created by performing the edit workflow step. This step is performed automatically when a field of the released version is edited and no draft version exists.
A user has the write permission for a file if they are a member of one of the user groups assigned to the Edit draft version and Administer file permissions of the file.
The editor of a file is the user to whom the file is assigned (e.g., after the user has performed the edit or take workflow action, or someone else has given the file to them).
A user is permitted to modify a file if they have write permission for this file and are its editor.
To be able to modify a file, a user needs to have write permission for this file and be the current editor of its draft version (see above).
The default workflow setting
(administrators may change the setting for editStepMembershipRequiredForEditor) allows every user having write permission for a file to become the editor of this file and then modify it.
The stricter workflow setting requires a user not only to have write permission for a file. They also need to be a member of one of the groups associated with the pending editing steps in order to be able to become the editor of the file and thus to modify it. Users to whom this applies may additionally make a different user the editor of the file by giving it to them using the corresponding workflow action.
After each editing step, the draft version is forwarded or committed, respectively, if the next step is a verification step. A verification step is performed by signing the committed draft version. The last verification step is the release.
A draft version can be rejected while it is edited or verified. This workflow step does not undo the changes made to the draft version, however, the workflow needs to be passed through again from the beginning.
Workflows are defined by a CMS administrator. A workflow definition has a name that can be specified in file formats so that new files based on these formats are automatically subject to this workflow. However, the workflow of a file can also be changed subsequently by setting the workflow file field to a different workflow name. This can only be done by an administrator of the file or by a CMS administrator.