Create Activity Workflow

Create Activity Workflows

A Create Activity Workflow provides the sequence for creating an example of an Activity Type. Every Activity Type has both a Complete Activity Workflow and a Create Activity Workflow. The Create Activity Workflow gathers the data that someone might later select when completing an Activity. When someone starts the Create Activity Workflow, the system Creates the Activity and starts the Workflow on the first step. When the Activity is first created, it will be considered unpublished and unavailable as an option elsewhere in the system. When the Workflow reaches the Complete Successfully state, the Activity becomes available as an option in the rest of the system. 

To begin a Create Activity Workflow, a person must possess the following characteristics:

• Must possess the Provider Role
• Must be related to a Provider Organization as a Staff member
• Must possess the Role specified on Step 1 of the Create Activity Workflow (usually, Provider Admin for Education Management use cases)

Create Activity Workflows can be started from:

• The Provider → Activities queue

Create Activity Workflows have three use cases:

• The system needs a single example of something, such as a generic "Academic Degree."
• The system needs multiple examples of something, such as "Harvard University" and "Yale University."
• An Activity is submitted by an education provider and is reviewed by the credentialing organization.

The following section describes Create Activity Workflows in greater detail.

Single Example

In a single example workflow, the configurator needs to set up an Activity to serve as a container for someone to complete (a.k.a., use the Complete Activity Workflow). Examples of these are:

• An Academic Degree - If we do not know what Academic Degree a person will submit, we create a generic "Academic Degree" Activity that people select in their applications.
• Work Experience - If we only have one type of Work Experience, we only need to create a single generic "Work Experience" Activity for people to select in their applications.

The Create Activity Workflow for Single Example Activities can be simple: we need only to collect the Activity Title and possibly a description, as the details will be provided by an applicant during the Complete Activity Workflow. There is typically a single Workflow Step because once the information is entered, there is no subsequent review. For an Academic Degree Activity Type, the Activity Title would be something like "Academic Degree" to represent that it will collect information about a person's school.

Because the Create Activity Workflow can be so straightforward, we create most Activities using a generic Create Activity Workflow that is part of every baseline implementation. The Generic Create Activity Workflow can create any Activity as long as the Activity it creates does not need any information not collected in the generic Create Activity Workflow. If the Single Example Activity needs to be described by an attribute that is not already part of the Generic Create Activity Workflow, a configurator can modify the Generic Create Activity Workflow or, if the changes are significant, the configurator can create a new Create Activity Workflow that possesses the desired attributes.

Multiple Examples

In cases of Multiple Example Create Activity Workflows, the configurator will use the Create Activity Workflow to create multiple known options. For example:

• Academic degrees must be chosen from a list of accredited programs (e.g., must be "Harvard University" or "Yale University")
• Continuing education courses must be chosen from a list of approved courses 

The Create Activity Workflow for Multiple Example Activities can be as simple as the Single Example model: we need to know Activity Title and maybe description and the rest of the details will be provided by an applicant during the Complete Activity Workflow. The main difference between a Multiple Example Activity and a Single Example Activity is that the Multiple Example Activity will have a more specific Activity Title. Instead of "Academic Degree," for example, the Activity Title will be "Harvard University" or "Yale University."

As with the Single Example process, most Activities that follow the Multiple Example path can be created using the generic Create Activity Workflow.

Education Management

For organizations that operate an Education Management program, the Create Activity Workflow can be considerably more complex than either the Single or Multiple Example use cases. In an Education Management process the Create Activity Workflow possesses all the steps necessary to collect information from an Education Provider that the organization uses to evaluate. There may be several Workflow Steps to collect information from the applicant, such as details about the course, syllabus, instructors, and offering dates and times. The Workflow may also include a payment step. Subsequent steps route the submission through a review process for the organization to evaluate, approve, or return.

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