Gravity Flow – Folders Extension

A folder of entries is a permission before it is an ordering

A request goes through three reviewers and ends up approved. Whoever has to consult it afterwards, a department head or someone in audit, is not an administrator or the person who submitted the form, and should not have to go through every entry in the workflow to find it.

In Gravity Flow Folders, anyone with access to a folder has access to all the entries it contains, so building a folder amounts to granting a view of those entries, not just sorting them.

Folders is a Gravity Flow extension that groups workflow entries into folders, using logical or arbitrary criteria. The folders show in the admin and on the site through a shortcode, and each one opens a list similar to the status page.

What it does with entries

• Folders with their own visibility: they are created under Workflow, Settings, Folders, with the plus and minus buttons, and assigned to all users, to specific users or to roles.
• Add to Folder step: puts the entry in one or several folders when the workflow reaches it. If the folder does not exist, the step can create it, visible to all users, and it creates it only once.
• Remove from Folder step: the entry stays in the folder until this step takes it out.
• Administrator actions: add or remove entries by hand from their detail page, with the gravityflow_workflow_detail_admin_actions capability.
• Timeline: each addition and each removal is reflected in the entry's timeline.
• View of all users: anyone with the gravityflowfolders_user_admin capability sees each user's folders and entries from the Users menu.

On the site, the [gravityflow page="folders"] shortcode shows the folders the current user has access to. With the folder attribute, which accepts the ID or the name, it shows one specific folder. It is built on the status shortcode, so its attributes apply too, and each folder's list can be filtered by form and by field values.

The later reviewer's folder

A folder visible only to one role, for example whoever consults approved requests. At the end of the approval workflow, an Add to Folder step that uses it, and the shortcode with the folder attribute inserted on a page. This is a starting setup; change it if your case is different.

Who sees what, and when entries go in

• Any user with access to the folder can access all the entries inside it.
• Entries enter a folder only when the step or the administrator action runs, and stay until they are removed.
• Viewing and managing folders from the admin and assigning entries by hand require the capabilities listed above.
• It is an extension: it does not work without Gravity Flow or Gravity Forms.

Installing and creating the first folder

You need Gravity Flow and Gravity Forms active. To get started:

1. Install the extension with the WordPress installer and activate it.
2. Open Workflow, Settings, Folders and create a folder with the visibility you need.
3. In the form's workflow, add an Add to Folder step and choose the folder.
4. Put the shortcode on a page.

Publishing entries on the site

If what you need is to publish Gravity Forms entries on the site, the catalog also has GravityView and GravityView Featured Entries.

Entries and folders, question by question

Can an entry be in several folders?

Yes. It can be added to several, with the Add to Folder step or with administrator actions.

What happens if the step runs again?

The folder is created only once. On later runs the step adds only the current entry.

Does an entry stay in the folder forever?

Until the Remove from Folder step or an administrator action takes it out.

Can a single folder be shown on a page?

Yes. Add the folder attribute to the shortcode, with the folder's ID or name.