WorkflowLab is a new Adobe® AIR® application that provides an easy way to learn about, track and share workflow best practices. It provides designers, developers and project managers with a common way to learn, build, annotate, share and track workflows for designing and developing projects. WorkflowLab includes a number of workflow starting points and enables users to easily share and track workflows.
WorkflowLab is currently in development and a beta build is available for download. In this updated build, WorkflowLab has added a number of usability features that make it easy to author workflows and track their progress as you learn about best practices.
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WorkflowLab was designed and developed using the latest tools from the Adobe Flash Platform and the Creative Suite 4 including Flash Catalyst, Flash Builder 4, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign. The tool includes a starting point that shows how WorkflowLab itself was created.
Important: WorkflowLab cannot be installed when the AIR 2 beta is installed on your system. To install WorkflowLab, please uninstall AIR 2 beta prior to installing WorkflowLab. Once WorkflowLab is installed, you can then reinstall the AIR 2 beta.
Getting Started
Follow these steps to get started with the WorkflowLab beta:
- Review the system requirements and release notes
- Download and install the WorkflowLab beta via the install badge above.
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Ask questions and share your feedback in the WorkflowLab forum
Please note that your submission of comments, ideas, feature requests and techniques on this and other Adobe maintained forums, as well as Adobe's right to use such materials, is governed by the Terms of Use. - Find and share WorkflowLab files at Adobe Cookbooks
Community
Below you'll find references and links to help you participate in the WorkflowLab user community.
Online Forum
Ask questions and discuss ideas with other WorkflowLab users in the Labs forums.
Please note that your submission of comments, ideas, feature requests and techniques on this and other Adobe maintained forums, as well as Adobe's right to use such materials, is governed by the Terms of Use.
Resources
If you want to learn more about releases on Labs as well as other Adobe technologies, visiting a user group or connecting with an Adobe Community Expert is a great place to start.
Product Details
Features
New Features
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Custom Tool Support | Author workflows using customized tools from a selection of types including applications, frameworks, libraries, services, vendors, people or resources |
| Categories | Classify workflow tasks or activities using color coded customizable categories |
| Duration Grid | Overlay tasks on a customizable duration grid to add temporal context to workflows |
| Completion Status | Monitor and track your workflow progress by applying completion statuses to your workflow tasks |
| Rich Text Editing | Enhance your workflow task annotations with rich text editing capabilities and inline web links |
| Command Bar | Improve your efficiency in creating workflows using the new command bar for point and click authoring capabilities |
| Associated Link | Associate web links with workflow tasks for additional task background or to associate with related content on the Internet or internal networks |
| Search for Tool | Search within the Adobe tool list for fast selection of related tools to associate to tasks |
| Updated Workflow Starting Points | Revised workflow starting points that take advantage of new Beta features |
| Status Bar | Get additional feedback within the application through the new status bar |
| Collapsible Details Panel | Maximize your workflow authoring workspace by hiding the detail panel. |
| Duplicate Task | Quickly take an existing task and duplicate its associated tools, categories and annotation to speed up task authoring |
Existing Features
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Starting Points | A set of workflows to get you stared with WorkflowLab |
| Open workflows | Open a workflow file (.wfx) locally or from a URL |
| Create workflows | Create workflows to document for yourself or to share with others |
| Task management | Add, Delete and Edit tasks by directly manipulating task boxes |
| Check for updates | Check if a newer version of WorkflowLab is available. |
| Annotations | Add comments and instructions for workflows and tasks. |
| Applications and Technologies | Specify multiple applications and technologies for each task by selecting from a list. Icons appear in each task to visually communicate selections. |
| Visual workflow | Displays the workflow graphically so that you get an immediate view into the complete workflow. All of the tasks are displayed with their sequence in the workflow and the applications and technologies used. |
| XML file format | An open file format that stores all of the information for each workflow. This makes is very easy to share workflows with people and other applications. |
| Download links | Provides a link to download free or trial versions of each Adobe application |
| Undo | Undo any action such as deleting tasks |
FAQ
- Why was WorkflowLab created and what are the goals?
- WorkflowLab came out of a need to solve our customers’ problems. Customers told us that they sometimes don’t know how to do a project, what tools they should use and what skills they need to use them. They also wanted a way to share best practices information in a common way. WorkflowLab is an attempt to address these problems. We hope to hear from you whether in fact these problems are being addressed with this tool.
- Is WorkflowLab a new Adobe product?
- WorkflowLab is not a new Adobe product. It is a free utility for people to learn about and share workflow best practices.
- Why should I use WorkflowLab?
- WorkflowLab may help you if you are unsure about how to do a specific project type or want to know about best practices for projects you may already be doing.
- When will WorkflowLab ship the final release?
- Since this is a new concept we are taking a multi-phase approach before releasing a final version. The alpha build was released in October 2009 at Adobe MAX, and the Beta is currently available for download. Additional development is in progress for 2010.
System Requirements
The minimum system requirements for the WorkflowLab beta are as follows:
Windows
- Intel® Pentium® III 1GHz or faster processor, 512MB of RAM
- Recommended: Pentium 4 2GHZ or faster, 1GB RAM
- Windows 7, Windows Vista® Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise including 64 bit editions, Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP2 and SP3, Windows XP SP2 and SP3, Windows 2000 SP4, Windows 2003 Server
- 1,280x800 display with 16-bit or greater video card
Mac OS X
- Intel Core™ Duo 1.83GHz or faster processor; PowerPC® G4 1GHz or faster processor
- Mac OS X 10.4.11 or Mac OS X 10.5.4 and 10.5.5
- 512MB of RAM
- 1,280x800 display with 16-bit or greater video card
Linux
- Intel® Pentium® III 1GHz or faster processor, 512MB of RAM
- Recommended: Pentium 4 2GHZ or faster, 1GB RAM
- Fedora 8 and later, Ubuntu 7.10 and later, OpenSuse 10.3 and later
- xterm should be present on the system
- 1,280x800 display with 16-bit or greater video card
Release Notes
This release of WorkflowLab is prerelease software and is designed for evaluation purposes only. The software contained within the installer is not final; but, many portions of the technology are fully implemented and ready for you to try and discuss.
