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The current DSpace Reviewer Workflow System hardcodes a fixed set of 3 steps, of which the order is determined beforehand, and only the authenticated users (epersons) assigned to each of these workflow steps may participate in the workflow tasks that get assigned. In various use cases, the 3 simple steps for approving, rejecting, and editing the metadata of an submission, executed by the first person who claims the task from a predefined group (pool) of users, have proved to be quite insufficient when institutions have significantly more complex needs for mediating the review of DSpace submissions.
To resolve several of the shortcomings, @mire has implemented a "Configurable ”Configurable DSpace Workflow System"System”, planned for contribution to DSpace 1.8. This system is a generalization of a solution implemented and deployed in the production environment for certain clients.

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The workflow actions configuration is located in the {dspace.dir}/config/spring/api directory and is named "workflow-actions.xml". This configuration file describes the different Action Java classes that are used by the workflow framework. Because the workflow framework uses Spring framework for loading these action classes, this configuration file contains Spring configuration.

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans
    xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:util="http://www.springframework.org/schema/util"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.0.xsd
                           http://www.springframework.org/schema/util http://www.springframework.org/schema/util/spring-util-2.0.xsd">

    <!-- At the top are our bean class identifiers --->
    <bean id="{action.api.id}" class="{class.path}" scope="prototype"/>
    <bean id="{action.api.id.2}" class="{class.path}" scope="prototype"/>

 <!-- Below the class identifiers come the declarations for out actions/userSelectionMethods -->

 <!-- Use class workflowActionConfig for an action -->
 <bean id="{action.id}" class="orgoorg.dspace.workflowxmlworkflow.state.actions.WorkflowActionConfig" scope="prototype">
     <constructor-arg type="java.lang.String" value="{action.id}"/>

     <property name="processingAction" ref="{action.api.id}"/>
     <property name="requiresUI" value="{true/false}"/>
 </bean>

 <!-- Use class UserSelectionActionConfig for a user selection method -->
 <!--User selection actions-->
 <bean id="{action.api.id.2}" class="org.dspace.workflowxmlworkflow.state.actions.UserSelectionActionConfig" scope="prototype">
     <constructor-arg type="java.lang.String" value="{action.api.id.2}"/>

     <property name="processingAction" ref="{user.selection.bean.id}"/>
     <property name="requiresUI" value="{true/false}"/>
 </bean>
</beans>

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<bean id="{action.api.id.2}" class="org.dspace.workflowxmlworkflow.state.actions.UserSelectionActionConfig" scope="prototype">
     <constructor-arg type="java.lang.String" value="{action.api.id.2}"/>

     <property name="processingAction" ref="{user.selection.bean.id}"/>
     <property name="requiresUI" value="{true/false}"/>
 </bean>

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The configuration file for the workflow user interface actions is located in the {dspace.dir}/config/xmlui and is named "workflow-actions-xmlui.xml". BEach bean defined here has an id which is the action identifier and the class is a classpath which links to the xmlui class responsible for generating the User Interface side of the workflow action. Each of the class defined here must extend the //org.dspace.app.xmlui.aspect.submission.workflow.AbstractXMLUIAction// class, this class contains some basic settings for an action and has a method called //addWorkflowItemInformation()// which will render the given item with a show full link so you don't have to write the same code in each of your actions if you want to display the item. The id attribute used for the beans in the configuration must correspond to the id used in the workflow configuration. In case an action requires a User Interface class, the workflow framework will look for a UI class in this configuration file.

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Currently, the authorizations are always granted and revoked based on the tasks that are available for certain users and groups. The types of authorization policies that is granted for each of these is always the same:

• READ
• WRITE
• ADD
• DELETE

Database

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Database changes - Original text

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• in_progress_user_id: The identifier of the in progress user and the primary key of this table
• workflowitem_id: The identifier of the workflowitem for which the user is performing or has performed the step.
• user_id: The identifier of the eperson that is performing or has performe the task
• finished: Keeps track of the fact that the user has finished the step or is still in progress of the execution

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Backwards compatibility

For the DSpace 1.6 clients that use the new workflow framework, it is recommended to send all current items in the workflow back to the workspace since not doing this and changing the workflow might result in the loss of some workflow items. This can be done by using the following command: {dspace.dir}/bin/dsrun org.dspace.workflow.util.WorkflowItemConverter (no arguments are required).

The workflow that will be contributed in DSpace 1.8 will require the database upgrade script to convert the existing workflow items and configuration to the same state in the new workflow framework. In order to do this, the following issues need to be addressed:

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Aspects and configuration files

In order to be backwards compatible with previous versions of DSpace, a number of changes have been made to the existing submission/workflow aspect. The submission aspect has been split up into muliple aspects: one submission aspect for the submission process, one workflow aspect containing the code for the original workflow and one xmlworkflow aspect containing the code for the new XML configurable workflow framework. In order to enable one of the two aspects, either the workflow or xmlworkflow aspect should be enabled in the dspace-install-dir/config/xmlui.xconf configuration file. Besides that, a workflow configuration file has been created that specifies the workflow that will be used in the back-end of the DSpace code. It is important that the option selected in this configuration file matches the aspect that was enabled. The workflow configuration file is available in dspace-install-dir/config/modules/workflow.cfg. This configuration file has been added because it is important that a CLI import process uses the correct workflow and this should not depend on the UI configuration. The workflow.cfg configration file contains the following propertu:

• workflow.framework: possible values are 'originalworkflow' for the original workflow or xmlworkflow for the new XML configurable workflow framework.

Workflowitem conversion/migration scripts

Depending on the workflow that is used by a DSpace installation, different scripts can be used when migration to the new workflow.

SQL based migration

SQL based migration can be used when the out of the box original workflowframework is used by your DSpace installation. This means that your DSpace installation uses the workflow steps and roles that are available out of the box. The migration script will migrate the policies, roles, tasks and workflowitems from the original workflow to the new workflowframework. The following SQL scripts are available depending on the database that is used by the DSpace installation:

• dspace-install-dir/etc/oracle/xmlworkflow/workflow_migration.sql
• dspace-install-dir/etc/postgres/xmlworkflow/workflow_migration.sql

Java based migration

In case your DSpace installation uses a customized version of the workflow, the migration script might not work properly and a different approach is recommended. Therefore, an additional Java based script has been created that restarts the workflow for all the workflowitems that exist in the original workflow framework. The script will take all the existing workflowitems and place them in the first step of the XML configurable workflow framework thereby taking into account the XML configuration that exists at that time for the collection to which the item has been submitted. This script can also be used to restart the workflow for workflowitems in the original workflow but not to restart the workflow for items in the XML configurable workflow.

To execute the script, run the following CLI command: dspace(.bat) dsrun org.dspace.xmlworkflow.migration.RestartWorkflow -e admin@myrespository.org

The following arguments can be specified when running the script:

• -e: specifies the username of an adminstrator user
• -n: if sending submissions through the workflow, send notification emails
• -p: the provenance description to be added to the item
• -h: help

Additional workflow steps/actions and features

Work in progress...

Workflow overview features

A new features has been added to the XML based workflow that resembles the features available in the JSPUI of DSpace that allows administrators to abort workflowitems. The feature added to the XMLUI allows administrators to look at the status of the different workflowitems and look for workflowitems based on the collection to which they have been submitted. Besides that, the administrator has the ability to permanently delete the workflowitem or send the item back to the submitter.

Issues

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Curation System

The DSpace 1.7 version of the curation system integration into the original DSpace workflow only exists in the WorkflowManager.advance() method. Before advancing to the next workflow step or archiving the Item, a check is performed to see whether any curation tasks need to be executed/scheduled. The problem is that this check is based on the hardcoded workflow steps that exist in the original workflow. These hardcoded checks are done in the CurationManager and will need to be changed.

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