How to document a Workflow

[Hari Mani]

This question is in reference to Atlassian Documentation: Blueprints

I am looking to ensure that as my team expands, we can document workflows and SOP's within Confluence. I was wondering if there is a visual template I can use to map out a "tree". What I mean this is a Decision Tree that will guide the reader to a decision.

Thank you

[Phill Fox · Accepted solution]

You can draw out the decisions using a Gliffy diagram. Or alternatively you could create a tree hierarchy of pages based upon your decision points. The latter would of course give you more opportunity to provide guidance than a simple diagram.

[TomC]

I upvoted @Phill Fox [Adaptavist] 's response. Gliffy is one of the visual diagram add-ons (Lucidchart is another) that allows one to create and update diagrams on Confluence pages. Having on-page diagrams that can be updated on the fly, with versioning, is a big plus. To add to that suggestion, you could have the best of both worlds by utilizing hyperlinks as needed within the diagram to point to pages in Confluence (or to attachments or to anywhere else you may want to link to) which can help provide additional information or context. As a Gliffy user, I know hyperlinks are supported in Gliffy, and imagine they are supported in other tools as well. Good luck!

[Phill Fox]

Thanks for the upvote @Tom Crespi I agree with Tom that combining the Gliffy diagram with hyperlinks to your documented guidance would be a great way forward. Good luck with your documentation.

[TomC]

Hi @Phill Fox [Adaptavist], just realized seeing your profile who you are. Missed you at the 2015 AUG-L Workshop at Summit earlier this month, but did chat a bit with Kevin S. Hope you are doing well.

[Phill Fox]

Hi @Tom Crespi No worries about not recognising the name there are enough of us out there! Yeah I missed summit this year as I changed jobs and now work for Adaptavist so had to hand over my AUG Leadership. Doing well in new role and getting to work with lots more Atlassian customers too. Hope to see you at Summit next year though.

[TomC]

Good onya @Phill Fox [Adaptavist] to catch on with Adaptavist! Our local Adaptavist contact (and frequent StL AUG meeting attendee) is @Matthew Stublefield. Apologies to Hari to hijack this Q&A with personal connection stuff, but thanks to Hari's question for the re-connect. Cheers.

[Steven F Behnke]

We have created a basic template in Confluence that handles the details, and it looks similar to the Text View of the workflow editor. We combine this with a basic diagram of the flow in Lucid Chart and a screenshot of the raw flow from JIRA.

With a template like this, you need to be aware of the potential things to record within a workflow –

• Add-ons in use
  • Add-ons can add additional Conditions, Validators, Post-functions etc so this should be noted! 

• Statuses
  • Name
  • Description
  • Properties
  • Category

• Transitions
  
  • Name
  • Type
  • Description
  • Triggers
  • Conditions
  • Validators
  • Post-Functions
  • Properties
  • Transition screens

[MattS]

And it has to handle the workflow being changed in jira

[Steven F Behnke]

(upvote) If your documentation doesn't stay accurate it's useless!