Introduction
Workflows in IBM OpenPages are already a core tool for providing clear, user-friendly and secure processes for business users to complete all kinds of tasks. These are designed in an intuitive no-code environment, while allowing a high level of of context-dependent conditions, granular user access rules and auditibility.
Many OpenPages practitioners and administrators know that it is possible to create workflows without stages for business user interaction. However, few know how far this functionality can really go. Hiding just beneath the shiny exterior, there’s quite powerful functionality for solving all kinds of tricky business problems.
Today, let’s dive into the power of automatic workflows in OpenPages.
Automatic workflows?
Beyond the standard
A workflow can have 3 possible stages: Start, End, and Standard. While Start and End stages serve as the start and end points of a workflow (obviously), a Standard stage is where the workflow pauses and users are prompted, via email notification and/or OpenPages dashboard, to perform the tasks that are expected of them.
Usually, workflows are constructed around these Standard stages, setting up data objects and tailoring views so that users have all they need for their tasks. However, when omitting these stages, you still have access to the powerful operations in the actions that connect workflow stages; just without waiting for a user’s input in-between. We refer to these workflows as automatic workflows.
Putting the puzzle together
These operations can be configured to automatically perform most actions that users could do manually: changing field values and creating new child objects, for example. With the release of OpenPages 9.1 in 2025, these operations have been expanded with object associations, auto-associations upon object creation, and even object deletion. All of these operations can be programmed with conditions based on related data objects, business entity context and/or the attributes of the user.
The final puzzle piece that fully unlocks the potential of workflows is the fact that a workflow can perform specific operations as if it were a system administrator. This allows execution of complex chains of operations, custom calculations and other automatic workflows, invisible to the regular user but still totally configurable in no-code fashion, with all the benefits that that brings.
Use cases
Nice words, but what can this concretely be used for? Consider the following use cases:
- A 1-click action to create a new parent Risk Assessment record from an IT System or other potential child record, with automatic associations
- Automatic propagation of Policy library updates to Policy records distributed across business entities, with separate operation branches for updating vs archival, while keeping the distributed Policy records fully available to users
- Automatic updates of business entity-level approvers and overseers on records within those business entities
- Lock down creation of any object with exceptionally fine-grained conditions, based on data of any related data object, the business entity or the user’s attributes, with custom error messages and notifications
- Automatic approval triggering if any user makes any change to a particular record
Many use cases which would previously require custom coding, or would simply not be in reach at all, can now be configured with automatic, no-code workflows.
What are the benefits?
There are substantial benefits of using workflows for use cases like the ones listed above, rather than custom coding or calculations:
- Development and solutioning can be done by business analysts and more technical team members alike
- Updates can be easily and securely deployed without application downtime, by anyone with admin access
- Takes advantage of the extremely verbose in-system logging
- Development, debugging and maintenance are aided by the ability to make the workflow start actions available to only (subsets of) admins
- Email notifications can be sent to business users or to admins for monitoring
- OpenPages calculations can be called at specific moments within workflows, to utilize calculation functions
- The workflow functionality receives updates with every release of OpenPages, making it a continuously supported key aspect of custom GRC solutioning by IBM as well
Endless possibilities
These benefits provide a clear advantage compared to similar GRC platforms, which either provide many processes but little flexibility for unique business rules, or require custom coding, which adds additional layers of requirements translation and SDLC management, resulting in a significant increase of solutioning time.
Things to keep in mind
Even considering all of the above, there are still two things to keep in mind with automatic workflows.
- A workflow can still not be activated like calculations or triggers, which automatically run when a field is updated. However, they can start with any kind of applicability conditions on at least an hourly schedule, still making them suitable for most use cases.
- Email notifications for multiple workflows to the same user cannot be aggregated. Therefore, the functionality must be scoped to prevent email overload for the recipients.
Conclusion
IBM OpenPages is already a complete solution for most GRC projects with the out-of-the-box modules, but it also steps up to the plate for very unique business requirements with the deep workflow functionality, while never losing the smooth way of working that characterizes OpenPages. With workflows continuously being prioritized for updates by IBM, the ability of OpenPages as a whole to meet general needs as well as very particular needs is only increasing.
About us
We are Timus Consulting Services, a fast-growing, premium Governance, Risk, and compliance (GRC) consulting firm, with a specialization in the GRC implementation, customization, and support.
Our team has consolidated experience of more than 15 years working with financial majors across the globe. Our team is comprised of experienced GRC and technology professionals that have an average of 10 years of experience. Our services include:
- GRC implementation, enhancement, customization, Development / Delivery
- GRC Training
- GRC maintenance, and Support
- GRC staff augmentation
Our team
Our team (consultants in their previous roles) have worked on some of the major OpenPages projects for fortune 500 clients across the globe. Over the past year, we have experienced rapid growth and as of now we have a team of 15+ experienced and fully certified OpenPages consultants, OpenPages QA and OpenPages lead/architects at all experience levels.
Our key strengths:
Our expertise lies in covering the length and breadth of the IBM OpenPages GRC platform. We specialize in:
- Expert business consulting in GRC domain including use cases like Operational Risk Management, Internal Audit Management, Third party risk management, IT Governance amongst others
- OpenPages GRC platform customization and third-party integration
- Building custom business solutions on OpenPages GRC platform
Connect with us:
Feel free to reach out to us for any of your GRC requirements.
Email: Business@timusconsulting.com
Phone: +91 9665833224
WhatsApp: +44 7424222412
Website: www.Timusconsulting.com
