We’re debating whether to implement custom routing logic for our nonconformance workflow or stick with MC’s standard approval chains. Our quality team wants conditional routing based on severity, department, and product line - essentially a decision tree with 12+ possible paths.
The custom routing logic would be elegant and match our paper-based process exactly, but I’m concerned about three things: maintaining audit trail requirements during upgrades, the validation impact when MC releases new versions, and the long-term support burden.
Has anyone implemented complex custom routing in NC workflows? How did it hold up through version upgrades, and what was the audit/maintenance overhead? Trying to decide if the business benefit outweighs the technical debt.
Custom routing can work if you design it with upgrade resilience in mind. We use a hybrid approach - standard MC workflow stages with custom business rules in between. The audit trail stays intact because we’re not modifying core routing tables, just adding decision points. Document everything in your validation protocols and create automated regression tests for each routing path.
The hybrid approach sounds interesting. Can you elaborate on how you implement business rules without modifying core routing? Are you using MC’s workflow extensions or something custom-built outside the standard framework?
We went the custom route in 2020 with MC 2021.1 and regretted it during the 2022.2 upgrade. The custom routing broke because MC changed how approval stages handle parallel paths. Took us three weeks to revalidate the entire workflow.