Adding new Task types¶

The Workflow system allows users to create tasks, which represent stages of moderation.

Wagtail provides one built in task type: GroupApprovalTask, which allows any user in specific groups to approve or reject moderation.

However, it is possible to add your own task types in code. Instances of your custom task can then be created in the Tasks section of the Wagtail Admin.

Task models¶

All custom tasks must be models inheriting from wagtailcore.Task. In this set of examples, we’ll set up a task which can be approved by only one specific user.

# <project>/models.py

from wagtail.models import Task

class UserApprovalTask(Task):
    pass

Subclassed Tasks follow the same approach as Pages: they are concrete models, with the specific subclass instance accessible by calling Task.specific().

You can now add any custom fields. To make these editable in the admin, add the names of the fields into the admin_form_fields attribute:

For example:

# <project>/models.py

from django.conf import settings
from django.db import models
from wagtail.models import Task


class UserApprovalTask(Task):
    user = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, on_delete=models.SET_NULL, null=True, blank=False)

    admin_form_fields = Task.admin_form_fields + ['user']

Any fields that shouldn’t be edited after task creation - for example, anything that would fundamentally change the meaning of the task in any history logs - can be added to admin_form_readonly_on_edit_fields. For example:

# <project>/models.py

from django.conf import settings
from django.db import models
from wagtail.models import Task


class UserApprovalTask(Task):
    user = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, on_delete=models.SET_NULL, null=True, blank=False)

    admin_form_fields = Task.admin_form_fields + ['user']

    # prevent editing of `user` after the task is created
    # by default, this attribute contains the 'name' field to prevent tasks from being renamed
    admin_form_readonly_on_edit_fields = Task.admin_form_readonly_on_edit_fields + ['user']

Wagtail will choose a default form widget to use based on the field type. But you can override the form widget using the admin_form_widgets attribute:

# <project>/models.py

from django.conf import settings
from django.db import models
from wagtail.models import Task

from .widgets import CustomUserChooserWidget


class UserApprovalTask(Task):
    user = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, on_delete=models.SET_NULL, null=True, blank=False)

    admin_form_fields = Task.admin_form_fields + ['user']

    admin_form_widgets = {
        'user': CustomUserChooserWidget,
    }

Custom TaskState models¶

You might also need to store custom state information for the task: for example, a rating left by an approving user. Normally, this is done on an instance of TaskState, which is created when a page starts the task. However, this can also be subclassed equivalently to Task:

# <project>/models.py

from wagtail.models import TaskState

class UserApprovalTaskState(TaskState):
    pass

Your custom task must then be instructed to generate an instance of your custom task state on start instead of a plain TaskState instance:

# <project>/models.py

from django.conf import settings
from django.db import models
from wagtail.models import Task, TaskState

class UserApprovalTaskState(TaskState):
    pass

class UserApprovalTask(Task):
    user = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, on_delete=models.SET_NULL, null=True, blank=False)

    admin_form_fields = Task.admin_form_fields + ['user']

    task_state_class = UserApprovalTaskState

Customising behaviour¶

Both Task and TaskState have a number of methods which can be overridden to implement custom behaviour. Here are some of the most useful:

Task.user_can_access_editor(page, user), Task.user_can_lock(page, user), Task.user_can_unlock(page, user):

These methods determine if users usually without permissions can access the editor, lock, or unlock the page, by returning True or False. Note that returning False will not prevent users who would normally be able to perform those actions. For example, for our UserApprovalTask:

def user_can_access_editor(self, page, user):
    return user == self.user

Task.page_locked_for_user(page, user):

This returns True if the page should be locked and uneditable by the user. It is used by GroupApprovalTask to lock the page to any users not in the approval group.

def page_locked_for_user(self, page, user):
    return user != self.user

Task.get_actions(page, user):

This returns a list of (action_name, action_verbose_name, action_requires_additional_data_from_modal) tuples, corresponding to the actions available for the task in the edit view menu. action_requires_additional_data_from_modal should be a boolean, returning True if choosing the action should open a modal for additional data input - for example, entering a comment.

For example:

def get_actions(self, page, user):
    if user == self.user:
        return [
            ('approve', "Approve", False),
            ('reject', "Reject", False),
            ('cancel', "Cancel", False),
        ]
    else:
        return []

Task.get_form_for_action(action):

Returns a form to be used for additional data input for the given action modal. By default, returns TaskStateCommentForm, with a single comment field. The form data returned in form.cleaned_data must be fully serializable as JSON.

Task.get_template_for_action(action):

Returns the name of a custom template to be used in rendering the data entry modal for that action.

Task.on_action(task_state, user, action_name, **kwargs):

This performs the actions specified in Task.get_actions(page, user): it is passed an action name, for example approve, and the relevant task state. By default, it calls approve and reject methods on the task state when the corresponding action names are passed through. Any additional data entered in a modal (see get_form_for_action and get_actions) is supplied as kwargs.

For example, let’s say we wanted to add an additional option: cancelling the entire workflow:

def on_action(self, task_state, user, action_name):
    if action_name == 'cancel':
        return task_state.workflow_state.cancel(user=user)
    else:
        return super().on_action(task_state, user, workflow_state)

Task.get_task_states_user_can_moderate(user, **kwargs):

This returns a QuerySet of TaskStates (or subclasses) the given user can moderate - this is currently used to select pages to display on the user’s dashboard.

For example:

def get_task_states_user_can_moderate(self, user, **kwargs):
    if user == self.user:
        # get all task states linked to the (base class of) current task
        return TaskState.objects.filter(status=TaskState.STATUS_IN_PROGRESS, task=self.task_ptr)
    else:
        return TaskState.objects.none()

Task.get_description()

A class method that returns the human-readable description for the task.

For example:

@classmethod
def get_description(cls):
    return _("Members of the chosen Wagtail Groups can approve this task")

Adding notifications¶

Wagtail’s notifications are sent by wagtail.admin.mail.Notifier subclasses: callables intended to be connected to a signal.

By default, email notifications are sent upon workflow submission, approval and rejection, and upon submission to a group approval task.

As an example, we’ll add email notifications for when our new task is started.

# <project>/mail.py

from wagtail.admin.mail import EmailNotificationMixin, Notifier
from wagtail.models import TaskState

from .models import UserApprovalTaskState


class BaseUserApprovalTaskStateEmailNotifier(EmailNotificationMixin, Notifier):
    """A base notifier to send updates for UserApprovalTask events"""

    def __init__(self):
        # Allow UserApprovalTaskState and TaskState to send notifications
        super().__init__((UserApprovalTaskState, TaskState))

    def can_handle(self, instance, **kwargs):
        if super().can_handle(instance, **kwargs) and isinstance(instance.task.specific, UserApprovalTask):
            # Don't send notifications if a Task has been cancelled and then resumed - when page was updated to a new revision
            return not TaskState.objects.filter(workflow_state=instance.workflow_state, task=instance.task, status=TaskState.STATUS_CANCELLED).exists()
        return False

    def get_context(self, task_state, **kwargs):
        context = super().get_context(task_state, **kwargs)
        context['page'] = task_state.workflow_state.page
        context['task'] = task_state.task.specific
        return context

    def get_recipient_users(self, task_state, **kwargs):

        # Send emails to the user assigned to the task
        approving_user = task_state.task.specific.user

        recipients = {approving_user}

        return recipients


class UserApprovalTaskStateSubmissionEmailNotifier(BaseUserApprovalTaskStateEmailNotifier):
    """A notifier to send updates for UserApprovalTask submission events"""

    notification = 'submitted'

Similarly, you could define notifier subclasses for approval and rejection notifications.

Next, you need to instantiate the notifier, and connect it to the task_submitted signal.

# <project>/signal_handlers.py

from wagtail.signals import task_submitted
from .mail import UserApprovalTaskStateSubmissionEmailNotifier


task_submission_email_notifier = UserApprovalTaskStateSubmissionEmailNotifier()

def register_signal_handlers():
    task_submitted.connect(user_approval_task_submission_email_notifier, dispatch_uid='user_approval_task_submitted_email_notification')

register_signal_handlers() should then be run on loading the app: for example, by adding it to the ready() method in your AppConfig.

# <project>/apps.py
from django.apps import AppConfig


class MyAppConfig(AppConfig):
    name = 'myappname'
    label = 'myapplabel'
    verbose_name = 'My verbose app name'

    def ready(self):
        from .signal_handlers import register_signal_handlers
        register_signal_handlers()

Note

In Django versions before 3.2 your AppConfig subclass needs to be set as default_app_config in <project>/__init__.py. See the relevant section in the Django docs for the version you are using.