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Workflow Basics

Encord SDK supports programmatic use of Workflows with the following: WorkflowStage, WorkflowAction, and Task. Typical use would be querying a WorkflowStage to get Tasks matching some criteria, and then executing a WorkflowAction against Tasks (for example: assigning, submitting annotation tasks, or accepting review tasks). The type of actions available depends on the stage queried. Here is a short description of major parts of the Workflows SDK:
  • WorkflowStage: Move your tasks through a Workflow Project using the WorkflowStage class.
    • AnnotationStage
    • ReviewStage
    • ConsensusAnnotationStage
    • ConsensusReviewStage
    • AgentStage
    • FinalStage (Complete and Archive)
  • WorkflowAction: Applies an action to a task in a workflow stage The following actions are supported:
    • assign: Assigns a user to one or more tasks.
    • submit: Moves a task to the next stage.
    • release: Releases a task from the current user.
    • accept: Accepts a task.
    • reject: Rejects a task.
  • Task: Exposes a simple version of the tasks available in a Project.
  • TaskStatus: The following statuses are available: The following statuses are available for ANNOTATE tasks:
    • NEW: Tasks that are unassigned.
    • ASSIGNED: Tasks that are assigned to a user.
    • RELEASED: Tasks that were released from an assigned user.
    • REOPENED: Tasks that were reopened.
    • SKIPPED: Tasks that were skipped by annotators.
    • COMPLETED: Tasks that are in the Complete stage. Used for Annotation sub-tasks in Consensus Annotation tasks.
Consensus Annotation tasks consist of 1 or more Annotation sub-tasks.
The following statuses are available for REVIEW and CONSENSUS REVIEW tasks:
  • NEW: Tasks that are unassigned.
  • ASSIGNED: Tasks that are assigned to a user.
  • RELEASED: Tasks that were released from an assigned user.
  • REOPENED: Tasks that were reopened.
In Consensus Projects, tasks in the COMPLETE and ARCHIVE blocks CANNOT be reopened.

View all stages in a Workflow

The following code provides you with the method to view all stages in a Workflow in a Project. The code is the same for Consensus and Non-Consensus Projects.
Routers are not displayed in the list of stages when using the SDK.
Non-Consensus Project This is an example of a non-Consensus Workflow graph.
Consensus Workflow Project This is an example of a Consensus Workflow graph.

Non-Consensus Projects

In the SDK, a class is defined for every stage type. This allows you to see what properties and actions each stage offers. The following stages are supported for non-Consensus Projects:
  • AnnotationStage
  • ReviewStage
  • FinalStage (Complete and Archive)
Tasks provides programmatic access to your tasks available in the UI.
The following tasks are supported for non-Consensus Projects::
  • assign: Assigns a user to one or more tasks.
  • submit: Moves a task to the next stage.
  • release: Releases a task from the current user.

Display Tasks in a Stage

Use the following scripts as templates for annotation and review tasks.
Display Stage Tasks

Assign a User to Tasks in a Stage

Use the following scripts as templates for annotation and review tasks.

Submit Tasks as Another User in a Stage

  • Annotation Tasks can only be submitted on behalf of users with the following roles: Annotator, Annotator + Reviewer, Team Manager, or Admin.
  • Review Tasks can only be submitted on behalf of users with the following roles: Reviewer, Annotator + Reviewer, Team Manager, or Admin.

Retain Current User and Submit Task

  • Annotation Tasks can only be submitted by users with the following roles: Annotator, Annotator + Reviewer, Team Manager, or Admin.
  • Review Tasks can only be submitted by users with the following roles: Reviewer, Annotator + Reviewer, Team Manager, or Admin.

Get all Tasks

Get Tasks

Filter tasks by data hash

You can filter tasks in any stage using data hashes.
Filter tasks by data hash

Move all tasks in a stage to the next stage

You can submit tasks as the currently assigned user or as a different user. If you do not specify the user to submit the task, you are assigned as the user submitting the task.

Use model predictions as an annotator

Consensus Projects

Consensus annotation tasks can be listed, but cannot be assigned or moved into the Consensus review stage. In Consensus Projects, tasks are broken into subtasks. One subtask for each Annotator. Subtasks can be assigned or submitted. Consensus Projects support the following stages:
  • AnnotationStage
  • ReviewStage
  • ConsensusAnnotationStage
  • ConsensusReviewStage
  • FinalStage (Complete and Archive)
The following actions are supported for Consensus review and Review and Refine:
  • assign: Assigns a user to one or more tasks.
  • approve: Moves a task to the next stage.
  • release: Releases a task from the current user.
  • reject: Rejects a task.

Get all Subtasks

Get Subtasks

Select your labels from a Consensus Project

The following code includes produce_result, that is undefined. You need to create and define the custom logic that selects the labels from the label options you have available.

Move Tasks

To Next Stage

Submitting a task moves it to the next stage in the Workflow.
Submit Task To Next Stage

To Complete

workflow_complete() moves Workflow tasks to the Complete stage.
In Consensus Projects, tasks in the COMPLETE and ARCHIVE blocks CANNOT be reopened.

Reopen

Use the workflow_reopen() method to reopen tasks. Reopening tasks moves tasks back to the first stage in your Workflow.

Move Tasks Freely

  • Moving tasks skips all intermediate Workflow stages, placing them immediately into the selected stage.
  • All labels (object and classification) are automatically approved when tasks move to a COMPLETE stage.
  • Webhooks do not fire when tasks teleport through a workflow.
This script shows how to move a data unit directly between workflow stages, bypassing the standard workflow progression. The script shows how to access various Workflow Stage types; you should only use the ones relevant to your project.
Moving Tasks

Task Priority

You can read and assign task priorities using the SDK. Priorities in the SDK are represented by numbers ranging from 0 to 1, where 1 corresponds to 100 in the Encord platform, the highest priority value.
For more information, see our platform documentation for the Queue tab, and priorities.
You cannot set the priority for more than 100 tasks in a bundle.

End-to-End Example moving tasks through Projects

This example uses a basic non-Consensus Project Workflow moving a number of tasks from ANNOTATE to COMPLETE. !End-to-end Example Workflow !End-to-end Example tasks
  • Project ID: 01bd7084-b04a-4cd1-87f3-73e8e78925c4
  • Data units: apples_01.jpg, apples_02.jpg, apples_03.jpg, apples_04.jpg, apples_05.jpg
A few tasks have been annotated, but they have not been submitted yet. The following code lists all tasks in the ANNOTATE 1 stage.
From the returned results we can see that four of the data units have been assigned (apples_01 to apples_04) while one task has not (apples_05). We do not know the extent that each of the assigned data units has been annotated, but we want the tasks to move through the Workflow.
The following code submits ALL tasks to the REVIEW 1 stage. Before the tasks can be submitted they are first assigned to a user in the Project. The user could be any user capable of annotating in the Project (because this is the ANNOTATE stage). For this example, the Admin of the Project (the user with SDK access) is assigned.
Submit all tasks for review
Each time we perform an action, we should verify the action is successful. After submitting the tasks, we can verify that the tasks are now in REVIEW 1.
All of the tasks are now in stage REVIEW 1. None of the tasks are assigned to any users.
We know that apples-05.jpg does not have any labels, because it was not assigned to any users before we submitted the task. If we REJECT the task, according to the Workflow in the Project, the task returns to the ANNOTATE 1 stage.The following code filters the task in the REVIEW 1 stage based on the task’s data hash, and then rejects the task.
From what was returned, we can see that only data unit apples_05.jpg was acted upon.To verify that the task is now in ANNOTATE 1, run the following:
There are still four tasks in REVIEW 1. The following code approves the tasks. This moves the tasks to the COMPLETE stage. You could approve all the tasks at once the REVIEW 1 stage, but instead we will filter by data hash and then approve.
Use the following code to verify that the tasks apples01 to apples_04 are in the COMPLETE stage.
And from what the code returns, the tasks are now in the COMPLETE stage.