The Workflow Engine: Contracts → Workflows → Asset Stages

An ITAD workflow is the recipe for what happens to an asset between dock and deal. Receive, test, grade, erase, photograph, list. The order matters; the steps differ per contract type and per device category. The workflow engine is the part of the platform that makes that recipe explicit instead of tribal.

The three-layer linkage

A contract defines the commercial terms (pricing, SLAs, certifications). It links to a workflow that defines the operational steps for assets under that contract. The workflow defines the asset stages the assets walk through: typically receiving → testing → grading → erasure → ready-for-sale, but with optional branches (failed-testing → retest, demanufacturing → component-harvest, recycling-bound → recycler-prep).

Per-asset stage tracking

Each asset has a current stage, a stage-history, and a next-action prompt. The pipeline view (/core/pipeline) is the tenant-wide read of every asset’s current stage, sortable per stage. The workflow definition controls which stages are valid transitions — the platform won’t let an asset jump from receiving to ready-for-sale, skipping testing.

Stage completion can generate the next artefact

This is where the engine earns its keep. Completing a workflow stage can auto-generate the next artefact: completing erasure can generate a settlement (under a lease-return contract with chargeback rules), completing testing on a market-bound asset can generate a draft listing, completing receiving can generate an inbound-completion report for the client. The auto-generation is explicit (defined per stage in the workflow) and audit-logged.

Workflow types per contract type

Lease-return assets walk a different workflow than buyback assets, which walk a different one than recycling assets. The platform ships with default workflows per contract type, and tenants can clone-and-customize from /settings/core/workflows. The customization is at the workflow level (which stages, which auto-generations), not at the per-asset level — a workflow change applies to all assets under contracts using that workflow, going forward.