More than disappointed!!! New tools wasted my time again (WORKFLOW)

Once again I have wasted more than a dozen hours trying to use the new Workflow Tool only to have NONE of my revisions saved when I open the tool again to keep working on it. As a seminary teacher I was crafting a very detailed workflow to guide my students through an original language word study. Unable to complete the workflow in one sitting I opened it to edit and spent roughly 7 hours making detailed changes and additions. When I finished I clicked done and close the workflow tool. Later this evening I went to work on it again. In opening the workflow to edit it - NONE of the changes, revisions or additions I had made in the previous 7 hour session were saved! NONE!

I love the promise of the workflow tool. The ability to create specific workflows related to my assignments would be so useful to my students and would help them learn new tools in Logos at the same time. But I am tired of wasting time trying to get it to work. I posted about this weeks ago. I get that it is intermittent and that it is a problem for some and not for others. But considering the amount of time and money that I have invested (both in my own use of the tool and the fact that we require our students to own the tool as well) it is getting discouraging.

If the tools are not ready for users to use them for serious work without the risk of wasting hours of time, they should not be released!

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Comments

Phil Gons (Logos)

Michael, I’m sorry to hear that you lost work. Let me check with the team to see if we can do anything to recover it.

Just to be clear, were you working through and filling out a Workflow template on a particular word (from the Guides menu) or were you creating a workflow template using the Workflow Editor? Sounds like the latter, but just wanted to be sure.

Any more details you can provide? The name of your template?

Michael Hite

I was creating a custom workflow. The name of my template in Word Study (BVBII)

Fred Chapman

Hi Michael and Phil,

I don't know if this is the same issue, but similar behavior is being reported here

Note that one of the contributors to that thread indicates that they have already talked with tech support.

Doc B

FWIW, I noticed another recent thread about WF not saving changes. Sounds like the issue isn't isolated.

[EDIT]

Fred and I posted at the same time, and he has a link to the thread I was thinking of (thanks!).

MJ. Smith

Several people have had this problem but for different reasons. May I asked if you started off with the "new" button on the lower right? If you saved then continued, did you select "edit this workflow" from the Panel Menu (kebab)?

Michael Hite

Yes I started with new. At one point I clicked DONE and took a break. I came back later and it had the work I had done to that point so I spent the rest of the afternoon editing, adding, and revising it. I clicked DONE and took another break. Went back an hour later right clicked on the workflow in Custom Workflows list and selected Edit. When it opened a circular graphic appeared at the center and when the text came up it was the originally saved version with no edits retained.

Kolen Cheung

This is not going to help you right now but for the future:

When using a new feature, always assumes it doesn't work. Test it first by doing what you might want to do, but just the very beginning, minutes of work only.

The way Logos documents works reminds me the old days when one need to fill in a web form (some of the poorly design site nowadays still has this problem!), you spent an hour filling in a lot of boxes and typed paragraphs and when hitting submit, you have no internet connection for some reason! And when internet recovers, everything is gone. Hit back, just an empty form (sometimes it would still be there.)

The problem in Logos documents is similar in analogy. Traditionally for "documents" one would save a file to a certain place, and knowing that you created a file meaning that it does has been saved (to play safe, close and open from that file again.) But there's no such thing in Logos cloud. It's better than the web form analogy above to have a done button or so, but there's no transparent way to know that it doesn't work.

Personally I would not create any kind of Logos documents especially those requiring substantial work unless absolutely necessary (like a visual filter or highlight) which is also your case (workflow). I'll resort to PBB whenever I can. May be Logos can release a syntax and output type support for workflow? It's the only way the end users can have absolute control and safety net.

Philana R. Crouch

In opening the workflow to edit it - NONE of the changes, revisions or additions I had made in the previous 7 hour session were saved! NONE!

This has been fixed in 8.3 SR-3.