Softdocs Basics

What is Softdocs Etrieve Central?

Etrieve Central is a browser-based, mobile first management system for electronic forms and documents. Etrieve Central is designed to be:

  • Universally accessible
  • Easy to use
  • Extensible & customizable
  • Mobile friendly and responsive
  • Dynamic & fully integrated with Banner

Etrieve Central's page layout is divided into sections:

  • Header (top bar)
  • Primary Navigation Panel (always displayed, left side of page)

Central Page Layout

To perform any function within Etrieve, users should navigate to the appropriate section of the Primary Navigation
Panel. The Primary Navigation Panel is located on the left portion of the home page and consists of two sections,
Flow, and Forms, with sub-panels that contain available Flow and Forms options.

The Document Viewer display

Document Viewer actions

Filling out forms to submit to the college

Select a form from the Forms library. After filling in your information, select the Submit or Submit to icon on the lower left hand bar. If attachments are needed, upload a file after clicking on the Attachment icon and before submitting.

After Submitting a Form

Flow Activity Panel
The Activity Panel contains any workflow packages that the user had an active role in such as approving, initiating,
etc. This Panel reviews the current status of these package as well as any activities that were related to the package.
No action can be taken towards a package from this panel.
Similar to the Inbox Panel, user activity may be searched and filtered to limit results by all, specific packages, or by
items. If a user applies a filter to the list of workflow packages in their Inbox or Activity, those filters will be preserved
until the user logs out or closes the browser.

Activity Panel

In the Activity Panel, the status of a Package will also be described. A Package can either be in Progress or will have
Ended in the workflow. In Progress refers to a workflow that is still requesting activities from Users and has not
been completed thus far. Ended refers to a Package that has completed the workflow, and all activities have been
satisfied.


From the Activity Panel a user can perform the following actions within the Flow Activity:


HISTORY | History allows the user to view information about the Package’s routing in the workflow up to the
present time. If the Package Item is an eForm, information about any changes that have been made to the form
will also be recorded.


NOTE | If a package is routed to a specific member of a group using User Directed Routing and is acted on by them,
it will be listed only in that member’s activity. The activity of the other group members will not indicate that the
package was acted upon.
PACKAGE HISTORY | View a detailed history of the Package’s progress. Additionally, a user has the ability to add
general comments regarding package actions when the package is in their inbox or queue. Click ‘Save’ to preserve any comments made.

AUDIT HISTORY | View any changes or updates that have been made to the Form. Select the View Changes button
to the right of the Form Name and the Form will appear in the Viewer in a read-only format. Purple information
tags are displayed in each field of the Form regardless of whether or not changes were made. If a field on the Form
was changed, the actual change made, date, time and user ID is presented when the informational tag for that field
is selected.

ATTACHMENTS | Users may upload file(s) to the Item that is currently being displayed in the Viewer. Click on the
icon and a panel will be displayed where the user can select files and upload them. After attachments have been
uploaded, when the icon is selected, there will be a red badge on the icon displaying the count of attached
documents. There will also be a small image with three stacked squares. The user can select this icon to Edit,
Delete or View the Attachment. When View is selected, the file will be downloaded in its native format.

DOWNLOAD | Downloads a PDF version of the Package. An Item with multiple pages includes all pages within the
PDF. An additional page with the Package history information will be appended to the end of the Package PDF file.


PRINT | Print the current document.

 

Approving a form

APPROVE | Approves the document, allowing it to continue with its approved workflow. If the User Directed Routing
feature has been incorporated into a given workflow, when the Approve icon is selected, the name of the User
Group(s) at the next step in the workflow is displayed as illustrated in Figure 3.5. If the workflow is designed to send
the Package to more than one Group as the next step in the workflow, all of these Groups (and their constituent
Users) will be selectable. The approver may choose to send the Package to the entire Group by clicking the
checkbox to the left of the Group name or may select one or more Group members by clicking the arrowhead (>)
to the right of the Group name. Only available users will be included in the candidate list to avoid sending Packages
to users no longer at the Institution.

Decline a Form and Other Functions

DECLINE | Declines the document and sends it through an alternate declined workflow.

REFER | Allows the document to be submitted to an alternative user for review. This action can be enabled or
disabled at a specific Actor Step in a workflow by an administrator. The user may or may not be an element in the
workflow. The user will need the appropriate security access to ‘Etrieve Forms.’ The user to whom the Package has
been referred has all the normal options except for Deny, including the ability to refer the Package to a third Etrieve
user, thus creating a ‘chain’ of referrals. The Username and the Display Name of the alternative user will be shown
to avoid confusion of users with the same name. As a name is entered into the Search field, results will be filtered
and narrowed down. The application will only display the first 50 results from the page.

RETURN | Allows the document to be submitted to any previous user within the workflow for review. The workflow
administrator has the option to prevent a package recipient from returning a package to a referral user who
approved the package during previous steps. The referral users will be omitted from the list of available users when
performing a ‘Return to Previous Step’ action.

 

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Details

Article ID: 14850
Created
Tue 7/25/23 9:26 AM
Modified
Tue 12/5/23 8:15 AM