Applicable to the following Sastrify plans:

Legacy*EssentialsProPlatinum
✔✘**✔✔


* Legacy includes all plans signed before February 29, 2024. 

** For Essentials plans signed before March 1, 2024, this feature is accessible as an add-on.

With Sastrify, implementing a procurement workflow for purchasing new SaaS tools or renewing existing tools has never been easier. 


As your centralized SaaS procurement solution, it is designed not only for setting full visibility on renewal dates and terms, but also to streamline your procurement process, allowing you to define workflows in the app, to be used in the same app, making it an end to end single stop shop for your SaaS procurement. 


Definition of terminology: 
Procurement workflow refers to the series of interrelated processes and steps involved in purchasing or renewing, in our case, software products and services. The procurement process typically has several stages, and each stage involves the assignment of an approver.



With the Sastrify's Workflows feature, you can:

  • Define workflows to be automatically triggered later for new purchase or renewal initiatives.
  • Translate and structure your company's procurement stages along with the approver for each stage, allowing you to bring all stakeholders from various teams and departments into the app to collaborate.
  • Use the Sastrify Form Builder feature to customize your capture form, giving you full flexibility to create the form used as part of your workflow to capture additional information in the procurement initiatives. 

IN THIS ARTICLE

Create New Workflows

Workflows can be accessed from Settings > Workflows.


To create a new workflow:

  1. Click "New Workflow" button.
  2. Select the workflow type: New Purchase or Renewal, and click "Continue".


  3. Select intake form option: default form or customized form, and click "Continue".



  4. If the latter is selected, you will redirected to the Sastrify Form Builder. (Refer to the next section for the detailed guide on how to work with the the Form Builder.)

  5. Define the procurement stages and their assignee from the drop-down menu (the person who will be the responsible stakeholder and approver of the stage). 



  6. You have the option to save the workflow as draft.

  7. Click "Activate" to finalize and activate the workflow.
At any given time, you can only have 1 workflow active for each type (New Purchase and Renewal), while drafts can be created for as many as possible

Where will the Workflow & the Intake Form be used?

The workflow set up here will be implemented to support a feature called: Procurement Initiatives - where you can use when you are to kickstart a new purchase or to renew an existing tool.


For the options in step 2 - selecting the intake option - the option selected will affect the length of the input form when starting a new procurment initiative. 

  • Choosing to use Sastrify's default intake form will allow you to simply use the pre-defined form - which cannot be changed when starting a new initiative (step 1). 
  • Opting for customization will not change the Sastrify defined form, but it will add a second step labeled "Share more details" (see below) which allows you to define an additional form with your set of questions and fields to accommodate your internal procurement process.

 Now that this is clear, let's move on to the next section on how to work with Sastrify Form Builder. 

How to build a customized intake form

A key feature of the Sastrify Form Builder is that it uses an easy-to-use drag and drop form builder to dynamically create the forms and resources for Procurement Initiatives.


Adding a form component

To add a form component, drag the component from the left column to the desired location in the form (on the right side of the Form Builder.

There are several components available for building your form. We encourage you to read this article for a brief explanation of what each component is and how it works.


Editing a form component

To edit a form component on a form, hover over the component and a set of component settings will appear (each component has its own settings). These settings allow you to:

  • Edit a component by changing its label and add a description, tooltip, and a check mark to indicate whether a component is required.
  • Move a component to a desired location or order.
  • Edit JSON. The Form Builder generates a JSON Schema representation of the form or resource, which you can edit using this setting.
  • Copy and Paste to allow you to create another version of a particular component and place it in a different location on the form.
  • Finally, you can remove a component from the Form.


The preset components are meant to serve as fillers and examples for Sastrify admins. You are free to remove them, start over and define your own form as you see fit. 
The Form Builder is designed to give you the best flexibility to translate your internal processes and create them in Sastrify, and to accommodate your own specifics for the best level of customization because no procurement processes are the same!



Pro Tip: When you add a component, we recommend that you edit it by using Description and Tooltip to add additional information that can be helpful to the input process. Please see the example below:

Edit a Workflow

If, after creating a workflow, you find that you need to make some adjustments to it, such as revising the assignee, or adding a new stage or a new layer of approval, you can do so by following these steps

  1. Select the workflow.
  2. Click the 3-dot icon for that specific task and select "Edit".
  3. Make the necessary changes. 
  4. Confirm your changes by clicking "Activate".


Attention: A workflow can only be edited if there is no active initiative currently using that workflow. In other words, any active initiative must be fully completed and the initiative bubble must show a zero.


Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I enable multiple workflows for the same procurement initiative type?

A: No, you cannot. Although you can create and draft as many workflows as you like, you can only activate 1 workflow for each type. 


Q: I cannot find the assignee in the drop-down menu. What should I do?

A: Before a user can collaborate in Sastrify or be assigned to a task, you need to make sure that this person is already invited to Sastrify and is an active user. To invite a colleague, go to Settings > Users & Authentication. Then click on the "Invite users" button. Fill in the details and send the invitation. After the person has accepted the invitation and the login has been created, you can go back and try to assign a task to this person.


Q: Which of the 3 user roles: Admin, Contributor, and Viewer can create a Workflow? 

A: Only users with the Admin role can create a workflow. Refer to this article to understand different user roles and permissions.


Q: Can I assign more than one person to a task?

A: No, you can only assign a stage to one person.


Q: As part of our company's process, we would like to include files as part of the form because the person requesting the initiative needs to be able to download them for their review. Can I use the Custom Form Builder to do this?

A: You absolutely can! One component you will need to use is Content. It allows you to add the link to the files (i.e. to your company's shared folder). For a more detailed guide to the Content component and other components, please see this article.