One type of workflow you can implement on the system is a continuous workflow.

Continuous workflows will trigger automatically based on trigger conditions that you specify on the workflow properties. Below are some examples of these trigger conditions.

Type: Calendar - Relative

The relative option allows you to select a relative date such as the first to the fifth of any particular day in a month, you can also set the first or last day in a month. In my below example I am triggering this workflow on the last Friday of every month.

Type: Calendar - Absolute

The relative option allows you to select a more fixed date on which to trigger your workflow. Through this you are able to select a fixed individual date such as 24th January or you can specify to trigger on a fixed date each month as in the example below where I have set my workflow up to trigger on the 1st of each month.

Type: Time off duration

The Time off duration option allows you to trigger a workflow based on a time off instance being logged of a certain duration or above. The below example would trigger the workflow based on an instance of unpaid leave being taken where the duration is over 10 days. The workflow would check for any instances of this over a rolling 6 month period and the rule will start in your system from the activation date provided.

Type: Time off instances

The Time off instances option allows you to trigger a workflow based on a number of instances of certain time off types. In the below example, I have set it to trigger based on 3 or more instances of my time off Types Cold and Flu or General Sickness being logged in the system. The Period option indicates that it is looking back over a rolling 12 months to see if any employees have met this criteria with time off logged against them.

Note: When using Time off duration or Time off instances there is a check within the system where we will only trigger the workflow again if a new instance of absence is added to prevent workflows triggering when the list of matching absences have not been altered.

This means that once triggered the workflow would not trigger again until a new matching instance was added - it would not trigger when an "old" instance was no longer valid.

Update for Time off duration and Time off instances workflows when closing open time off

Ordinarily, continuous workflows will trigger early each morning and look for patterns which match from the previous 24 hours - for example an employee has had another instance of sickness. This does not change.

However, if you have a time off request which is open (i.e. it has no end date) and you close this time off request (i.e. add an end date) this will now check for any continuous time off instances or duration workflows and, if found, trigger at once.

This is so you can use a custom workflow process for return to work or self certification meaning you do not need to wait until the next morning for the process to trigger.

Type: Mileage Cost/Distance

These options allow you to trigger a workflow based on value of mileage cost or distance based off the total cost/distance on the claim or on any particular line item on the claim. On both of these, you also have the option to trigger them against pending claims.

Type: Expense Cost

These option works the same as the Mileage cost with the exception that you can choose to trigger the workflow based on the total cost of the expense claim or the expense categories that you have setup in your system

Type: Trigger Date

This options will work off the the trigger date on the workflow steps of your workflow. The trigger date options you can use on your workflow steps are detailed in Workflow - When should this happen? article which you can view here.

Type: Employee Age

Finally, the employee age option allows you to trigger a workflow based on an employees age. In the example below I have setup my continuous workflow to trigger where any employee who started in my company from the 1st January is under 18 years old.

Options - Here are all of the changes which we can trigger a workflow from.