Docs / API / Workflows

Flotiq workflows

Note

Flotiq workflows can be customized in enterprise version only. Reach out to us to discuss possible implementation.

Workflows are a powerful feature that helps teams collaborate and produce quality content. Flotiq implements workflows for all content types defined in the system, however the default workflow supports only a single state - saved. Every content object in the system carries a workflowState field under the internal section, see last line of the snippet below:

{
    "id": "snipcart-584874",
    "name": "Gunpowder Temple Of Heaven",
    "image": [
        {
            "type": "internal",
            "dataUrl": "/api/v1/content/_media/_media-5e17192889e87"
        }
    ],
    "price": 22,
    "internal": {
        "createdAt": "2020-01-08T13:29:28+00:00",
        "deletedAt": "",
        "updatedAt": "2020-01-09T12:30:38+00:00",
        "contentType": "snipcart",
        "workflowState": "saved"
    }
}

Custom workflows

Custom workflows can be defined in Flotiq, for example a simple editorial workflow that introduces the following states:

• draft
• review
• public
• archive

with the following possible transitions

can be used to help teams curate content, manage publication and archiving of content.

Hint

Transitions are named using the following rule: _fromState_toState

Changing the workflow of a Content Type Definition

Workflows are defined at the Content Type Definition level, in order to change the workflow of a Content Type Definition from the default one - execute a PUT update on the /api/v1/internal/contenttype/:label endpoint and provide the additional attribute pointing to the workflow identifier:

{
    "id": "d954df66-3623-11a4-ba9a-ca80993425cb",
    "name": "post",
    "label": "Blog posts",
    "internal": false,
    "workflowId":"publishing",

 //   ...

}

Transitioning objects in the workflow

Every content object created in the system will automatically be assigned the first state of the workflow, in the example above - draft. In order to transition the object to a different state use a simple PUT request to /api/v1/workflow/:content_type/:object_id endpoint with the following body:

{
    "action":"_draft_review"
}

Verifying possible transitions of an object

If you'd like to verify what are the possible transitions of an object, given its current state - you can issue a GET request to /api/v1/workflow/:content_type/:object_id, the response will contain the current state of the object as well as possible transitions from that state:

{
    "state": "public",
    "enabled_transitions": [
        {
            "name": "_public_archive",
            "froms": [
                "public"
            ],
            "tos": [
                "archive"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Internal fields workflowPublishedAt and workflowPublicVersion

Every content object has workflowPublishedAt and workflowPublicVersion fields under the internal section. These fields contain information (such as updatedAt and latestVersion) about the last content object version in the public state.

Note

If there are no content object versions in the public state, the workflowPublishedAt field will be set to -1, and the workflowPublicVersion field will be set to an empty string ("").

Note

If the object itself is the latest public version, its workflowPublishedAt and workflowPublicVersion fields will point to the current object version's updatedAt and latestVersion fields. See the example below.

{
    "id": "snipcart-584874",
    "name": "Gunpowder Temple Of Heaven",
    "image": [
        {
            "type": "internal",
            "dataUrl": "/api/v1/content/_media/_media-5e17192889e87"
        }
    ],
    "price": 22,
    "internal": {
        "createdAt": "2020-01-08T13:29:28+00:00",
        "deletedAt": "",
        "updatedAt": "2020-01-09T12:30:38+00:00",
        "contentType": "snipcart",
        "workflowState": "public",
        "latestVersion": 2,
        "workflowPublicVersion" : 2, 
        "workflowPublishedAt" : "2020-01-09T12:30:38+00:00",
    }
}

Note

When a content object is unpublished, all workflowPublishedAt and workflowPublicVersion fields pointing to this version will be set to -1 and an empty string ("").

Published content

The public state is a special state name, which teams can use in their workflows for an easy way to query for approved content. All Flotiq endpoints support a x-visibility header, which - if set to public - will force the endpoints to limit their work to content that is in the public state.