Creating dynamic workflow

[Adamhumbug]

Hi All,

I am building a system where users can apply to attend events.  When they do so they use a portal to make their application which is then submitted to the back end to be administered.

I really need some help designing this from a functionality point of view and from a "how it looks" point of view.  I am using bootstrap.

The idea is that the back end user can create a custom workflow allowing for as many approval stages as they require.

A very basic example would be

Stage	Comments
Draft	User savded without passing validation
Submitted	User passed validation and has done all that they needed to do
Accepted/Approvded	The back end user has OK'd the submission
Rejected/Declined	The back end user has said no to the application

All of these stages will eventually trigger actions such as sending emails.

The complexity that i have is that i want the back end user to be able to add their own stages.

An example of this could be a 2 stage approval process.  There could be another stage after approval such as security check, where someone else has a look at the data and approves it.

i am struggling to build the interface where the journey is defined - the stages that will be used are defined elsewhere.

There is a lot that i am not sure about and no doubt more and more will come up as we work throught it.  I will provide any code that is wanted here to help or even allow you to log into the application if i have worked with you before and you think that will help - of course i dont expect you to do that, this is not your job, but if it helps and youre interested.

This may not be enough information but should give you an idea of what i am trying to achieve.  I will be more than happy to provide more context where required.

 

Thanks As Always

[gizmola]

It sounds like what you are describing is a custom work flow engine.

Just editorially, a well known product that a lot of people know of in the software world is Jira.  Most people think of Jira as an issue tracker, but it's actually a workflow engine with issue tracking workflows pre-configured.  You can create any sort of workflow with it.  I set up some fairly elaborate internal workflows for companies I worked for in the past.  The level of complexity available, can make it very difficult to change a workflow once you started using it, which is one of the things that can be surprising about Jira.  

At any rate, there's a large list of workflow related products and software libraries you might take a look at. 

Unfortunately, like jira itself, a lot of Business Process Modelling (BPM) and workflow engines are written in Java, however I did note in the list, that there are libraries for both Laravel and Symfony frameworks that I would take a look at, even if it's just to see how someone else has solved the problem.