Workflow Sample: Episode 544: Easy Management of Mailing List by Cooperating with Google Group (2)

Management of mailing list

In the previous article, I introduced you a Business Process Definition of a Workflow in which (email address of) "newsletter subscribers" are added to "Google Group" automatically. (Task of corresponding to information material request.)

That was a mechanism by which one email address to be added to "one mailing list" automatically.

However, when you look around mailing lists inside your company, (even though it is on a downward trend due to the spread of so-called "chat tool") you will find various in-house mailing lists are used on a daily basis in many tasks, such as "Directive of the business policy", "Sharing information that should be limited within a department" and "Receiving system alerts".

Therefore, regarding management of mailing lists, it might be more cases where you want to add an email address to all of the "multiple mailing lists" at once.

Bulk registration to multiple Google Groups

The following Business Process Definition is "flow for new account request".

If there is a "new account request" from within the company, the IT system department will make necessary system settings such as "issue new account" and "modify LDAP setting".

What noteworthy is that the Step for addition and deletion in "multiple mailing lists" is automated. (automatization of Step)

That is, when an Issue reaches the Step of [Add Group Member] or [Delete Group Member], the Workflow system will send a request for addition / deletion (OAuth2). This means that, concerning a task of "addition / deletion in mailing list", the person in IT system department in charge is required only to confirm if selection is correct: "Google Group to be added to" (Checkbox) and "Google Group to be deleted from" (Checkbox). So the personnel in charge no longer needs to access "G Suite" dashboard and edit the Group setting one by one. (Admin SDK Directory API v1)

[Account issuance - List registration]

Affinity between auto-Step and Timer setting

A further noteworthy point is that the "addition time" and "deletion time" are also controlled by the Workflow system.

Suppose if Mr. Ichiro, for example, is transferring from "Sales department" to "Customer service department". Accordingly, an email address of 'ichiro@example .com' should be deleted from members of "sales@example.com" and added to "cs@example.com" as a member.

If you wish to execute the "deletion" and "addition" simultaneously on the transfer date (e.g. April 1st), it would be good to set both "time to add" and the "time to delete" at 6:00 of April 1st. Whereas, if there would be an inconvenience for taking over the job, you would better set "Addition" on April 1st and "Deletion" on April 30th.

Advantage due to automatize Step

Certainly, the processing of "addition / deletion in Google Group" alone is only a tiny work.

However, it has a very significant meaning in designing a Business Process Definition as "Service Task" (automatic Step) rather than "Human Task".

That is, firstly it will minimize the risk of "occurrence of mistake upon registration". Secondly, it will prevent "forgotten to work" beforehand. And thirdly, if you incorporate the timer properly into the Business Process, you will also be able to save the loss for "double working".

* [Add Group Members] and [Delete Group Members] are not standard Service Tasks, so you need to add Addons with definition file (Addon-XML) beforehand.

[Account issuance - List registration:"1. Request for account" screen]