One of the simplest ways for users to automate document processes in SharePoint 2013 is for them to manually invoke a workflow on a selected document. You can launch workflows on a document manually if they are configured for manual start and if they are associated with the current list or content type of the selected document.
From within the list that contains your target document, select the file by clicking the row.
On the ribbon, click the Files tab.
In the Workflow section, click the Workflows button.
On the Workflows page, if a workflow is available, it will appear in the Start A New Workflow section. Click this workflow to start the workflow.
These steps will only work if your administrator has previously linked a workflow with your document library or content type.
Each workflow can have different requirements. Some workflows might prompt the user for more information and others, as configured by the administrator, might run immediately.
After you add a workflow to a SharePoint 2013 document library, a new column is created on the default view within the library. This column is named after your workflow and displays the status of this workflow on any documents in your library. For more detail, you can click the link and check the status of the workflow as well as the history of previously executed steps.
On the workflow status page, you can inspect the currently assigned tasks (there might be more than one active task if a workflow has parallel review steps, for example). Additionally, the workflow history shows all of the previous steps that have been completed in the workflow.
Navigate to a library to which you have associated a workflow and launched the workflow on a document . Locate the column named after your workflow and click the status field.
For further details on currently running tasks, click the hyperlinked title of each task or tasks displayed in the Tasks section. These represent currently running steps.
