Cumulus Workflow

Cumulus has always had the flexibility of adapting to a user’s workflow rather than enforcing its own workflow standards. Many of Cumulus’ workflow features are available to implement straight “from the box”. The use of View Sets, Custom Fields and Field Formulas enables the user to configure Cumulus to best suit their needs.

View Sets

 The easiest Cumulus feature to implement is View Sets. Through the use of existing and custom catalogue and record fields, the metadata (or information) that is displayed to the end user can be controlled through either Record View Sets or Category View Sets. In this screenshot, the Standard Record View set has been modified to display workflow stage, job start date and job completion date. A colour bar has also been added to highlight the unscheduled jobs (cyan), late jobs (red), incomplete jobs (yellow) and the jobs completed on-time (green).

Metadata fields can be added to and removed from View Sets as needed and any number of View Sets can be created. These specialized View Sets in conjunction with Cumulus security allow the admin to focus a user’s attention on items that require their attention.

Metadata Fields

 Cumulus has over 500 available metadata fields that can be used to search, sort and capture data for catalogued (or ingested) assets. Metadata standards such as XMP, IPTC and EXIF can be extracted from files as they are added to Cumulus catalogues. For example, the information from a digital photograph will be captured into standard EXIF metadata fields. However, in order to integrate workflow features into Cumulus, it’s likely that Cumulus’ standard metadata fields will not have enough flexibility to create a specific workflow. This screenshot below shows some user-added custom workflow fields, which have been uniquely identified by prefacing the custom metadata fields with the letters “WF”.

Custom fields support a wide variety of data formats such as text, numeric, date, lists and Boolean types. In the screen shot, the WF_AssetApprovalStatus field uses a text list or string list to force users into using one of three available status conditions. Note that the other custom fields use date, text and label types to edit the appropriate data within this workflow example.

 Field Formulas

 The most advanced feature in creating workflow in Cumulus is the use of Field Formulas. Just like macros in a spreadsheet program, think of field formulas like Cumulus’ version of the spreadsheet macro. Hidden behind the Properties button of each Record field in the catalogue, is a tab where a formula can be created that reacts to a condition set in another field in the catalogue. The example below shows the workflow settings for a newly ingested asset.

The workflow field, WF_AssetStatus is initially set to “Unscheduled” as neither the WF_AssetSchedFinal nor the WF_AssetActualFinal dates have been entered by the CSR responsible for scheduling jobs. Once a date is entered into WF_AssetSchedFinal field the WF_AssetStatusLabel field changes from cyan to yellow and the WF_AssetStatus changes to “Incomplete”. These changes are the result of creating a field formula for both “AssetStatus” fields. Based on the dates entered, the status field contents change within the parameters defined in the field formula.

 Beyond Workflow Basics

 If you are new to Canto Cumulus and haven’t thought about how to integrate it into your workflow, consider trying out some of the features discussed here. On the other hand, perhaps you have exhausted the built-in features of Cumulus and would like to explore more advanced integration with your business systems or other databases. Either way, Otec Solutions can assist you, from your basic to advanced workflow needs. For further information, contact Don Hoy, 416-616-6506 or via email, mailto:don@otecsolutions.com