1. General Presentation

Advanced Business Workflow Management turns Dolibarr into a complete Business Process Management (BPM) platform. It lets organizations model, configure, automate and monitor their own business processes without any software development.

The module is designed for SMEs, large enterprises, public administrations, consulting firms, IT service companies (ESN), industrial companies, public bodies and associations.

·       Visual workflow builder (drag-and-drop-like step sequencing).

·       Reusable process models across seven business domains: sales, finance, HR, project, quality, purchasing and administration.

·       Steps, approvals and electronic validations with full audit trail.

·       Business rules engine and automated actions.

·       Dynamic forms, user tasks, notifications, documents and complete history.

·       Modern control-center dashboard and decisional reporting.

2. Architecture

The module follows the standard Dolibarr modular architecture and integrates cleanly with the core framework.

2.1 Technical characteristics

·       Module number (numero): 515200 — unique across the DoliResources catalogue.

·       14 dedicated database tables (prefix llx_wfm_*), multi-entity aware.

·       8 permission groups with read / write / delete rights plus a global admin right (23 rights total).

·       Top menu + 15 left-menu entries, all module-local URLs (no collision with other modules).

·       Standards: PHP 7.1–8.x, MySQL/MariaDB, Bootstrap-compatible responsive UI, Dolibarr 16+.

2.2 Data model (main objects)

·       Process: Workflow model / template carrying its domain, linked object type, owner and steps.

·       Step: Ordered step of a process (validation, approval, input, control, notification, document).

·       Actor: Role / responsibility: user, group, department or role, with delegation and substitute.

·       Rule: Business rule: field, operator, value and triggered action.

·       Action: Automated action: email, task, status change, document, notification, agenda event, trigger.

·       Form / Field: Dynamic form and its ordered fields (text, date, list, amount, file, signature…).

·       Instance: Concrete execution of a process on a real record, with status and progress.

·       Task: User task generated per step, with assignee, due date, priority and status.

·       Validation: Approval decision with validator, decision, date, signature and comment.

·       Notification / Document / History: Alerts, attached documents with versioning, and full event journal.

3. Detailed Functionalities

3.1 Control-center dashboard

A digital control center in the blue / violet / green charter. It aggregates process KPIs, an instance status kanban, and analytical charts (instance evolution, distribution by domain, most used processes, tasks by status), plus performance and workload indicators.

3.2 Workflow models

Central catalogue of business processes. Each process carries a domain, a linked Dolibarr object type (quote, order, invoice…), an owner, a version, a step count and an average duration. Lists offer per-column search and a show/hide column selector.

3.3 Visual workflow builder

Graphical modeling of a process: select a process to display its Start → steps → End diagram. Each step card shows its type, responsible actor and delay. Steps can be added or managed directly from this view.

3.4 Instances, tasks and validations

An instance is the concrete execution of a process on a real record. Each step generates a user task assigned to a responsible with a due date and priority. Approval steps produce validation records (approved, rejected, changes requested, delegated) forming the approval audit trail.

3.5 Business rules & automation

The rules engine triggers actions from conditions (e.g. "if amount > 10,000 € then management approval required"). Automated actions cover email sending, task creation, status change, document generation, user notification, agenda event creation and Dolibarr trigger calls.

3.6 Dynamic forms

Internal forms, requests and validation sheets can be built without programming, using text, date, list, amount, number, file and signature fields, and attached to a process.

3.7 Reporting

A multi-tab decisional reporting suite (process performance, instances by domain, tasks by status, validations, automation, workload) with CSV export, serving management, managers and quality teams.

4. Example Business Workflows

The module ships ready-to-use process models across all domains, for example:

·       Sales: quote validation, commercial discount approval, order approval, sales cycle.

·       Finance: supplier invoice validation, payment circuit, purchase request, budget validation.

·       Human resources: leave request, recruitment, training validation, employee onboarding.

·       Project: deliverable validation, change management, milestone validation.

·       Quality: non-conformity handling, corrective actions, internal audit.

·       Administration: internal requests, mail handling, authorizations.

5. Permissions

Permissions are organized in 8 functional groups (processes, instances, tasks, validations, rules, forms, documents, reporting), each with read, create/modify and delete rights, plus a global administration right.

·       Administrator: full management of the module.

·       Manager: creation and configuration of workflows.

·       Validator: validation and approval of steps.

·       Collaborator: execution of assigned tasks.

·       Observer: read-only access to reporting.

6. Dolibarr Integration

The module integrates with the native Dolibarr modules so workflows can be attached to real business objects:

·       Third parties (Societe) — process instances can be linked to a customer or supplier.

·       Quotes, orders and invoices — validation and approval circuits.

·       Purchasing — purchase requests and budget validation.

·       Projects — deliverable and milestone validation, change management.

·       Users, Agenda and documents — task assignment, event creation and document management.

The module is fully multilingual (French, English, Spanish, Italian, German) and ships a complete demonstration dataset that can be installed or removed in one click from the configuration screen.

© 2026 DoliResources — www.doliresources.com