Reltio Connect

In a recent webinar, Principal Solution Consultant Dan Gage was able to go over Reltio Workflow with us. He has been with Reltio for over six years, and has worked in the data management space for over two decades. Reltio is a cloud-based Master Data Management system that provides a single source of truth for all data collected by an organization. In that way, we hope to help businesses drive better business decisions. Reltio Workflow is one way that we do that. 

In this article, we will learn exactly what Reltio Workflow is, as well as the processes that drive it. We will also go over a general overview of everything that Reltio Workflow has to offer; from Data Stewardship Workflows to email notifications in the Reltio Inbox.

What is Reltio Workflow?

Workflow is often referred to as an orchestrated and repeatable pattern of activity. When you consider data governance and how to manage data quality as a whole, it’s important to reach and maintain consistency and repeatable processes. Reltio Workflow is designed to do just that. 

There are a number of industry standards that have evolved over the last two decades. These process standards provide the infrastructure to help organizations manage those repeatable data management processes. 

BPEL and Business Process Management

The first standard is known as BPEL. BPEL stands for Business Process Execution Language. Reltio has a completely BPEL compliant workflow engine within the Reltio platform. The engine we use is the Activiti workflow engine, and it is completely embedded and abstracted from the customer. 

What does that mean for you? We want users to be aware of this, because any documentation on the Activiti website could apply in a way that you can extend and/or enhance workflows within your Reltio tenant.

In order to build out your business processes, we support the Activiti plugin for Eclipse. This allows you to create custom workflows or modify an existing workflow. In addition, Reltio also provides a business process management notation interface, directly integrated into the Reltio Console.  The integrated modeling interface is typically sufficient for most use cases.

Reltio Workflow Overview

Let’s look at the significance here. Reltio is software as a service. So, we are providing not only the infrastructure to deliver on these workflows, but we’re also providing all the administrative and configuration capabilities within the Reltio platform. These allow you to review, define, and enrich Workflow processes so that business users can receive those repeatable, orchestrated series of activities.

Data Stewardship Workflows

Potential Match Review

These Reltio Workflow processes are predefined and pre-integrated into the Reltio data governance interface. The first of these processes is the Potential Match Review. Here, when the system has identified two matching records, Reltio will alert the user of these two records’ correlations, and suggest that they be merged together.

This is especially helpful in areas where you may deal with a medium level of correlation. As opposed to your higher level of correlation, where your match rules will automatically merge like records, here a data steward would need to review and make a decision. Many customers now simply use the Reltio search interface to find those potential match reviews. But, Reltio also provides the ability to launch Workflow processes so that users may trigger an email notification, perform routing, and approval of those match review processes.

Data Change Request

The Data Change Request is the second area that Reltio provides an out-of-the-box Workflow. Here, any user that either chooses to initiate a data change request or is restricted by their role-based access control can still make a change to a value or relationship. They can do this by using the standard Reltio interface, and the change is held in a pending state while it is routed for Workflow review and approval. This Data Change Request comes within the Retlio product, out of the box. Similarly, we also provide a Recommend for Delete feature, which we dive into further in a following article.

Custom Workflows

The infrastructure provided through the Activiti-based Workflow design also gives Reltio users the ability to create custom workflows from scratch. Imagine being able to see a need, and create a workflow designed around it, within the platform you are already comfortable with and familiar with. This is already possible within Reltio.

Productivity and Notifications

These workflows are primarily designed around increased productivity, making it useful for business users and data users alike. Part of supporting productivity is also allowing the use of mobile devices for our users. So, we provide full mobility support. Thus, you won’t have to be at your laptop or desk to receive assistance. 

Emails

We also provide email notifications when a task has been assigned. You will be able to get these email notifications whether you are on a phone, tablet, laptop, or are at your workstation. You will also be able to receive them via Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, or any other email provider. The email that arrives is template-based, so the information will be familiar and easy to understand. (If you’d rather use your own template, that is configurable.) The email also includes a hyperlink that will take users to the software, after the standard Reltio authentication process.

When a notification arrives, it may be from an out-of-the-box Reltio task, or a Workflow process that you have developed on your own. Regardless, these notifications can be turned off, in which case they will not go to your email. But, many business users like this email notification, so that they are prompted to enter the Reltio tenant and follow up on their potential task.

Accessing Reltio Tasks

In addition to emails, we also provide a Task Inbox on the Reltio Dashboard. So, as soon as you enter your Reltio tenant, you will see a list of potential tasks, the tasks you have yet to complete, or the user can access the full-featured application interface called the Reltio Inbox.  All tasks are listed here, and clicking on that task will take them to the appropriate record.

If the Reltio Inbox is not already launched in your browser, it can easily be accessed through the Reltio Menu. This will provide the ability to see tasks that are assigned to you or tasks that have been assigned to one of your peers. As long as that peer is in an equivalent role, you will even be able to go in and complete tasks for them if necessary. This is especially useful if a co-worker is on vacation, or cannot make it into the office. 

To get to the Reltio Inbox, find it in the Reltio menuing structure. Click on it, and bookmark the webpage that appears. That way, you can go to your inbox at a later date, and access the inbox on mobile and tablet devices
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A Detailed Look of Reltio Inbox

Upcoming Additions

Your Inbox is typically found in the upper right hand corner of your Reltio dashboard, but you can change this if you’d like. In the near future, a new Reltio release will allow end users to customize and configure their dashboard entirely so that you may choose what information is most relevant to you, how you’d like to display that information, and make actionable changes. This will be announced in a future session in 2022.

There’s a lot to unpack here, and we’ve only scratched the surface of the Reltio Workflow. So, check out the following articles for more information.

Take a listen to the in-depth Reltio Community webinar on Reltio Workflow: Process Design & Deployment

Relevant Content on Workflow Management can be found here: 
Reltio MDM Workflow Management