We are pleased to announce the following changes included in the release of our Flowset product dated 19 October 2023.

Summary of Release

This release includes improvements to Advanced Model features in Flowset introduced in the August 2023 release. This includes feature and usability enhancements.

This release also includes improvements to Formset, which now supports controlling the visibility of lookup fields.

New: Flowset Advanced Model Outcome Comments

Outcomes can be used to control which transitions are made available when the current activity is completed.  A single onward transition can have multiple outcomes that make it available.  The transition can also have a comment associated with it, but the comment will not be specific to the outcome that enabled the transition.

Task models have been enhanced to allow comments to be added to outcomes.  When the outcome is satisfied, the associated comment will be used in preference to one defined on the transition.  If there is no outcome comment, the transition comment will be used.

New: Flowset Advanced Model Task Comments

Advanced models now allow tasks to define task fields of type 'Comment'.  The Comment task field can have templated text associated with it.  When the task is performed on a ticket, the agent will be able to choose to apply the comment to the ticket.  The agent can choose which comment to apply if multiple comments are defined against a task. 

When a comment is applied to a ticket, the comment field is populated with the templated text from the workflow definition.  The agent is free to modify this text before committing the ticket.

These comment task fields can be used to put a standard comment onto the ticket (similar to a Zendesk macro), which defines and captures information relevant to the activity being performed.

Task model decisions can also use the presence (or not) of a comment to guide the behaviour of the task model.

Improved: Flowset Activate a Model when it is Published

Flowset categorises Workflow models as either Active or Inactive.  Active models are able to be applied to tickets to guide them through the desired process.  Inactive models cannot.  Inactive models will typically be new models under development but not yet ready to be used or old ones that have been retired and should no longer be used.

When you edit a workflow model definition, a draft is created, and all changes are made to the draft.  When you have finished the changes, you can publish the model.  If the model is already active, any tickets running this workflow will use the new definition.  If the model is inactive, it simply updates its published version.  A separate Activate is required to allow the model to be used on tickets.

Flowset now provides the ability to Publish and Activate a workflow definition that is currently inactive.  When you publish an inactive model, the dialog confirming the publication also asks if you want to activate the model.  By default, the activation is selected but can be deselected.

New: Formset Support for Lookup Fields

Formset now provides the ability to control the visibility of Zendesk Lookup Fields.  Before this release, Lookup Fields could not be controlled in this way by Formset.

The list of fields that can be controlled by Formset (the right-hand column) will now contain lookup fields.  Select a lookup field to make it controlled in the same way you would control the visibility of other field types.

Zendesk provides the ability to define Ticket, User and Organization custom fields of type Lookup.  Formset can now control the visibility of all of these Lookup field types.

Bugs and Issues fixed in this Release

Flowset Accelerators and Ticket Forms

When using ticket forms in conjunction with Accelerators, it is possible to define an accelerator which will set the value of a ticket field which is not on the form used by the ticket.  Flowset was unaware that the field was not present and may have incorrectly enabled onward transitions, which should not have been.

Choosing such a transition would have failed to be applied by the server since the necessary conditions had not been properly satisfied.

The Flowset assistant has been modified to understand that a field may not be present on the ticket form and will not enable onward transitions incorrectly.

Flowset Use of Outcomes with Decompositions

An activity can be decomposed so that the details of the activity is defined in a sub-process definition.  When you reach the end of the sub-process, you effectively step back up to the parent process definition and transition to the next activity following the one that was decomposed.

If the sub-process definition ends with an activity which produces outcomes (either through a Task Model or a set of Task Fields), these outcomes cannot be used at the parent level to control which transitions should be available when the sub-process completes.

This has been fixed, and you can associate outcomes defined in the sub-process with transitions from the decomposed activity at the parent level.

Formset Confirmation Rules Deletion

When you delete Formset rules from a Rule Group, you will now be asked to confirm that you wish to delete the rule.  This has been added to prevent the accidental deletion of rules.