Record Workflow Actions

Record workflow actions are custom actions which execute on an object or document workflow. Document workflows are a type of object workflow which are configured on the envelope__sys object.

If you are unfamiliar with object or document workflows, you should learn more before coding a record workflow action:

You can configure a custom action for object workflows on any of the following steps:

Start step: Actions configured against the Participants control. This action can include logic to populate the workflow participants. Note that if participants are populated through the SDK, Vault users cannot add participants to active workflows.
Task step: Actions which are automatically invoked when a workflow task reaches a specified task event. For example, immediately after completion or cancellation of a task instance. Learn more about available events in the WorkflowEvent Enum in the Javadocs.

Once configured on a workflow step, the record workflow action is automatically invoked on all events for that workflow step during workflow execution.

You cannot start a workflow, create tasks, and cancel the new tasks in the same transaction. For example, you cannot start a workflow and then cancel all tasks in a TASK_AFTER_CREATE event.

Implementing Record Workflow Actions

A record workflow action is a Java class that implements the RecordWorkflowAction interface and has the @RecordWorkflowActionInfo annotation.

The RecordWorkflowAction interface must implement the execute() method. This is where you place the logic for your custom action. You can use any of the available Java SDK services to create logic for your action. For example:

WorkflowInstanceService: Update workflow participants
WorkflowTaskService: Cancel workflow tasks
NotificationService: Send notifications to workflow participants
RecordService: Create related records
JobService: Begin a related workflow. Note that you can only start workflows where the Participants control set to Use roles as participants.

Unlike record actions or document actions, the RecordWorkflowAction interface does not include an isExecutable() method. This means all record workflow actions are available for configuration once deployed. If you want to enable or disable a deployed record workflow action, you can do so in the UI or through Vault API.

The @RecordWorkflowActionInfo annotation has the following elements:

label: Label of the action. This is the label which appears for Vault Admins when configuring this action.
object: If specified, the action is only available for object workflows associated to the specified object. To make this action available for document workflows, set this to the envelope__sys object. If omitted, the action is available across all object and document workflows.
stepTypes: The workflow step types that this action can be configured against.

The following is a basic skeleton of a record workflow action:

package com.veeva.vault.custom.actions;

        @RecordWorkflowActionInfo(label="Custom Approver", stepTypes={WorkflowStepType.START})
        public class CustomApprover implements RecordWorkflowAction {
            public void execute(RecordWorkflowActionContext context) {
                //action logic goes here
            }
        }