Process Supervisors

Process Supervisors are users who have special privileges to oversee and review the cases for a particular process. Often the manager or department head in an organization will be assigned as a Process Supervisor. Unlike Process Permissions which give read-only access to cases, a Process Supervisor can be given both read and write access to cases.

Process Supervisors can see all the cases in a process even if they aren’t assigned to any tasks in the case or haven’t participated in the case. If users have been assigned as Process Supervisors to DynaForms, they can edit the data in those DynaForms after they have been submitted. Likewise, if they have been assigned as process supervisor to Input Documents, they can delete and resubmit those Input Documents.

Defining a Process Supervisor

Only users which have the permission "PM_SUPERVISOR" in their role can be assigned as a process supervisor. This permission is included by default in the "PROCESSMAKER_ADMIN" and "PROCESSMAKER_MANAGER" roles, but not in the "PROCESSMAKER_OPERATOR" role.

It is generally not a good idea to give managers and department heads the full powers of a PROCESSMAKER_ADMIN, because they might accidentally modify the definition of processes. Only people who know how what they are doing should be given those powers. Therefore, it is recommended to give Process Supervisors the PROCESSMAKER_MANAGER role, but that role also users to do many things like see all cases, reassign cases, delete and edit users, etc.

If the Process Supervisor should only be able to edit case data, then create a new role for process supervisors with the PM_LOGIN, PM_CASES, PM_SUPERVISOR, PM_REASSIGNCASES permissions. If the process supervisor should be able to see all the cases from all the other processes as well, consider added PM_ALLCASES and PM_DASHBOARD to the new role as well. After creating the new supervisor role, then assign that role to the user(s) who will be the processes supervisor(s). Go to USERS > USERS LIST and click the View link for the user. Then in the form displaying information about the user, click 'Edit', go to the Role dropdown box and select the new supervisor role for the user.

Then open the process which will be assigned a process supervisor. Right click on a blank area in the process map and select Process Supervisors > Supervisors from the menu.

Adding a new supervisor

In the "Supervisors" dialog box a list of process supervisors will be displayed. To add a new supervisor, click on the Assign link. Select a user from the list of users who have PM_SUPERVISOR in their role and click Assign. As many supervisors can be assigned to the process as needed.

Reviewing cases as the process supervisor

After being assigned as a process supervisor, the user can go to CASES > FOR SUPERVISOR and see all the open cases for the process. (To see cases which are finished or canceled, either add the PM_ALLCASES permission to the role of the supervisor and go to the CASES > GENERAL tab or add a Process Permission for the supervisor and go to the CASES > ALL tab.)

For each case, the process has the option to Edit, Cancel or Delete a case.

The Edit link will open a case and display the "Steps List" window for the case. In that window, the supervisor can view any Input Documents and Output documents for the case. The supervisor will only be able to view and edit those DynaForms to which he/she has been assigned as process supervisor. While the supervisor can view all Input Documents, he/she will only be able to delete or upload Input Documents to which he/she has been assigned as process supervisor. See Assigning Supervisors to DynaForms and Assigning Supervisors to Input Documents below.

Clicking the Delete link will erase the case entirely, whereas Cancel will stop the case with the status of "CANCELED", but will not remove the case from the database, so it can later be examined if needed. It is often a good idea to cancel, rather than delete, a case so that good records can be kept. In addition, it is often useful to examine the canceled cases to determine what are the points of failure in the process and where clients are not being adequately served.

Users who are assigned as process supervisors will have the right to view all the open cases for a process, plus view any input and output documents for the case. If they need the power to review and edit DynaForms as well, right click on the process map and select Process Supervisors > Dynaforms from the menu.

A list of the DynaForms to which the process supervisor(s) have access will appear. To add a DynaForm to the list, click Assign. Select a DynaForm from the list and click its Assign link.

The process supervisor should now be able to edit the data in an already submitted dynaform.