Basic Administration > Supporting Collaboration > Workflow Administration > Workflow Management > Workflow System Overview
  
Workflow System Overview
A workflow system gives you the ability to automate procedures in which information, tasks, and documents are passed among participants. This procedure is based on a process composed of well-defined rules designed to efficiently accomplish your business goals.
This reference information provides details about creating and editing workflow templates, importing and exporting templates, and viewing workflow history. Detailed information concerning configuring worklist fields and object subscription code is also available.
The Windchill workflow system consists of the following components:
The Workflow Template Editor, which allows you to define a workflow process and save your definition as a process template. This graphical editor and its use are the focus of this chapter.
The workflow runtime system, which executes a defined workflow process within the context of a specific business object (for example, a part or a document). Process execution includes delivering work assignments to users participating in the process, opening applications (for example, automatically interacting with the Windchill Explorer to check a business object out of the database), initiating subprocesses, and so on.
The Workflow Process Manager, a graphical tool for monitoring and reporting on workflow processes. For access control information, see Process Manager Toolbar Access Control.
The Workflow History Viewer, which provides a simple ASCII interface used to access recorded workflow events, such as state changes, data transfers, or process start. Viewing Workflow History can assist you in optimizing or streamlining a workflow process.
The Workflow Process Administration utility, which provides a centralized area to manage executing workflow processes and diagnose any warnings or errors that may occur.