Workflow Framework Overview and Key Concepts

So what exactly is a workflow, and how do workflows relate to order management?

A Workflow is a business process or a series of tasks or activities involved in the delivery of products or services to a customer or client.  It defines the logical flow or lifecycle of a top-level entity within a domain.

Fluent's OMX Workflow Framework (also known as Rubix) executes customised business logic defined within workflows allowing for orchestration automation in a highly scalable, flexible, and efficient way.

OMX Workflow Framework - value proposition for order Management?

Fluent's OMX Workflow Framework allows Retailers to easily orchestrate Orders, Availability, Fulfilment, and Inventory, allowing them to adapt quickly to changing environments and market conditions without incurring expensive development costs.

High-Performance Scalable Processing
The OMX Workflow Framework is a highly performant and scalable execution system, which can process thousands of events simultaneously.

Flexible Customisation
The OMX Workflow Framework does not have any business logic. It allows customised solutions to be built by ensuring business logic is not baked into the APIs or Framework.

Low-Code Configuration
Business-friendly tools to create and manage workflows significantly reduces costs and provides efficiencies to business operations.

User Interaction
Enables smart integration of User specific activities with workflow logic.

Workflow phases and states

Each workflow has phases that the entity will flow through, from beginning to completion. For example, a default order workflow typically involves 4 phases:

Booking, Fulfillment, Delivery, and Done/Complete.

Each of these phases can contain one or many statuses. For example:

• Booked, Awaiting Payment, Check Fraud
• Picking, Packing, Fulfilled
• Awaiting Delivery, Delivered
• Complete, Cancel

Note: The workflow phases are only visualised in the Workflow Builder

Flip the cards below to learn more about the key concepts of a workflow:

State: A State represents the point at which the entity is within the workflow's business logic.

Event: An Event represents something that has, will, or is  happening within the system.

Trigger: A Trigger is the exact criteria for which a specific  rule set within a workflow will be executed upon a given Event.

An Event is typically used to trigger the system to do something or log activity of what has happened within the system.

Example 1: 

A client system creates an Event on Fluent Order Management with details about a status change to an order. The  Workflow Framework will match this event to the correct Ruleset in the workflow, and execute the configured business logic for the state change.

Note: You will learn more about rules and rulesets in the next lesson.

Example 2:

When an entity's state changes, such as the Order entity moves from Created to Booked, an Event is written to log that the activity has taken place.

So far we've covered the concepts of Workflow, Events, States, and Triggers.  Next up, Rules and Rulesets.