3 Tips for Creating Effective Workflows in LearnPlatform

[CarlySteenstra]

Workflows are an essential LearnPlatform by Instructure functionality that streamline the edtech vetting process. Using and building automated workflows strategically saves you time and effort, while helping loop in the right stakeholders at the right time. Plus, you have peace of mind knowing that vetting procedures you set are always progressing without needing manual updates. Be more efficient than ever with these tips to level up your vetting process:

1. Set Up the Parts of Your Workflow

Make building your workflows simple by setting up key parts ahead of time. Each of these elements can be started beforehand and edited later, allowing you to easily fit them into your workflow steps when the time comes to build your workflow.

• Forms are found in Settings. You can customize the form that is filled out by product requesters. Even if your review process is simple, capturing specific information important to your district during the time of vetting allows LearnPlatform to be a source of truth for decisions the district made about a product.

• Groups are found under the Members tab. Here, you can group one or more people together. Only one person in the group needs to complete the review to complete the workflow step, preventing a bottleneck of reviews. Alternatively, if a step needs to be completed by a specific person, create a group that includes only that person.

• Throughout workflows, there are opportunities to send custom Notification Messages to groups, individuals, or requestors. It can be helpful to get drafts or ideas for messaging started, and then go back and make final edits later when you’re building your workflow. It is best practice to notify the requestor at the beginning and end of the process.

• Tags & Statuses can be used when you build out a conditional step in your workflow. Conditional steps are steps that only happen sometimes in your workflow, ie. a particular product that needs to be reviewed by a department that typically wouldn’t weigh-in.

2. Build Your Workflow

Take advantage of the flexibility to kick off a vetting process four different ways: date-driven workflows, request-based workflows, manually from the Request tab, or manually from the Management tab. Once you’ve started a Workflow, follow these basic steps to build it out:

1. Name your workflow
2. Select reviewers– either a single person or a group. Those you select will get an email notification.
3. Select which form they will complete– either a default form or a custom form that you created.
4. Specify how long the task will take to complete. It is best practice to include this information if you are using a custom form.

Go beyond the basics by setting Automations to update a status, set a privacy status, add/remove a tag, or send a notification. Add Conditional Steps– or specific conditions set by you– under which the step will run. Then, view a preview of your Workflow to see a summary of what you built.

3. View Your Workflow In Action

Admin view is where you can see information about workflows and make certain changes, including:

• Filtering to see specific information
• Previewing a workflow
• Reviewing responses
• Viewing skipped requests
• Viewing automations
• Adding an additional assignee
• Stopping a workflow then adding a new tag or status
• Skipping a step
• Reassigning a step
• Viewing an AI summary of the workflow and what decision was made

On the Reviewer side, users can:

• Customize list or tile view
• Filter by date or review type
• View product descriptions
• View the questions they are being asked to answer
• View previous responses
• Receive an email when assigned a step

Collect additional product requests without starting the vetting process again by using status/forms to allow a second workflow or review:

• Change the status to Pending Approval and decide to accept no more requests until a decision has been made.
• Map the same form for all pending statuses and see all requests nested under the workflow reporting.
• Have a new form and second workflow to manage different processes until the full review has been completed.

Want to keep digging into workflow efficiency? Register for the LearnPlatform User Group on July 25th from 11-12:30 CST. Also, be sure to check out the LearnPlatform page of the Instructure Community where you can find product updates, announcements, release notes, and Instructure’s user forum.