Tasks Table
The Tasks table stores system-generated instances of Task Templates and manually created ad hoc tasks. Task records that contain the instructions, notes, and interactions that occur during the process of working on tasks. In the out-of-the-box system, Tasks are used with Contracts and Projects, but it's possible to incorporate tasks into other modules.
Layout
This section contains an overview of the important tabs of a Task record, along with some of the more important fields:
- Task Details: Contains fields defining the nature of the task, such as Task Type, Task Summary, and the task Description. It also shows task Status, Assigned Team, Assigned Person, Date Due, Assignment Trigger, and Recurrence settings if it is a Parent Task of a recurrence sequence. Child tasks have a link to the parent task instead. Tasks with the Task Type Obligation have additional information about the Obligation Source, Type and Output. The main task screen also includes an area for managing the related asset, if any. Tasks based on a template may be defined to have specific task steps, and if the task has such steps, they appear with checkboxes in the Working Notes section. There are no default rules enforcing that all checkboxes are checked before completing a task, but such a rule could be added. The user can add working notes at any time, and these will be added to the running history of all working notes: When working on an asset-related task, the technician can click one of the buttons shown above to update the Operational Status of the asset to reflect that it has been taken offline or brought back online.
- Related Tasks: Shows the prerequisite tasks, if any, and allows the current task to be related to prerequisite tasks within in the same parent record. It also shows any dependent tasks, that is, tasks for which this task is a prerequisite. When a task has two prerequisites that are already defined, the Trigger Condition defines whether this task will be set to Assigned only when both prerequisites are done, or as soon as any of them are done. Additional tasks associated with the same Service Request can be added to the prerequisites by selecting the task and clicking the Add to Prerequisites button. Either of these two tasks could be removed by selecting it in the Remove Task from Prerequisites field and clicking the Remove from Prerequisites button. The default Status for a task is Queued when it is created. When tasks are launched, any task without a prerequisite is automatically set to Assigned (see below for more details).
- Related Info: Shows details about the record linked to the task, which will typically be either a Contract, Project, Service Request, or Change Request. It provides hyperlinks to get to the source request to see more information.
- Process & Time: Contains attachments, overdue reminder settings, a timer where you can record Actual Start Time and Actual End Time. Time Entries are stored in the All Time Entries linked table.
Use Case
By default, Task records can be created by users in the admin, Admin Import, Business Admin, Contract Manager, Internal Supplier Manager, Legal, Project Manager, Response Evaluator, and Sourcing Event Manager groups.
Creating Tasks
In the out-of-the-box system, Task records can be created in in the following ways:
- Predefined Task Workflow: A workflow selected on the process table is used to trigger the creation of Task records when a user clicks the Generate Tasks button using the related Task Templates. This includes Recurring Tasks, which get automatically created at selected time intervals, and Obligations, which get created for certain Contract Types and Clause Types.
- User Selected Tasks: The user selects the necessary tasks from a multi-choice field of Task Templates in the process table. The selected Task Templates trigger the creation of Tasks records when the Generate Tasks button is clicked.
- Ad Hoc Tasks: The user clicks The Add an Ad Hoc Task button in a Contract where Ad Hoc Tasks are enabled on the Contract Type, or manually by clicking the New button in the Task table.
Task Details Tab
It's important to ensure the following fields of the Task Details tab are configured properly when creating Task records:
- Assigned Team / Assigned Person: When a Task record is generated from a Task Template record, it is automatically assigned to the appropriate team or person designated on the Task Template record. Refer to the Task Template section for more information on how Task Templates define the parameters used in generated Tasks. If the task is created ad hoc by the user, the Assigned Team should be set by the creator. If no Assigned Person is set, any member of the team is able to update the task.
- Date Due: For Tasks generated from a Task Template, the Date Due is set when the status changes from Queued to Assigned based on the working hours of the Assigned Team. When creating an Ad Hoc Task, the Date Due should be set manually.
- Assignment Trigger: For Tasks generated from a Task Template, the Assignment Trigger will be populated from the Task Template. When Prerequisite Tasks are used, the Task will become assigned when the prerequisite is completed. For Ad Hoc Tasks, the creator can define what the Assignment Trigger that will be used to set the status to Assigned and notify the Assigned Team or Person.
- Creation / No Open Prerequisites: Chosen when the task should be assigned immediately on create.
- Date: Fixed dates and dates Relative to the Contract can be used.
- Status: The Task will change to assigned when the contract status changes to the selected status.
- Task Recurrence: A recurrence interval is set for recurring Tasks that are generated from a Task Template. For some tasks Number of Occurrences will also be populated. In other cases the recurrence interval and the recurrence end trigger should be set manually. The end of recurrence can be based on the number of occurrences or a specific date. These settings can be set or changed in the parent task that starts the recurrence chain.
Working the Task
The person assigned to a task can add working notes to it, refer to the linked Contract or Project, and ultimately complete the task. There are several default statuses: Queued, Conditional, Assigned, Completed, Not Needed, Failed, and Waiting for Others.
- When the user completes the task, they change the Status to Completed/Approved and save the record. If there is no value in the Date Done field, the system will put the current date/time into the Date Done field. Alternatively, the user may enter a time in the Date Done field directly.
- While working on the task, the user may enter any time spent on the task in the Time Spent and Time Description fields, then click Add Time to convert them to Time Entries.
- When working on an asset, the Start Clock and End Clock buttons can be used to set the Actual Start Time and Actual End Time as needed. The user may also manually put values in these fields.
- When a task record is saved a rule called Edit: All Edit Actions (API enabled) is run.
- If the Status has changed to Completed, Failed, or Not Needed, the system updates the Dependent tasks by refreshing their Number of prerequisite tasks counts. If this was the last prerequisite, then that will trigger the next rule to assign the dependent tasks.
- The rule also sets the Assigned Person, if it is blank, to the person who completed the task.
- If the task is for a project, the project manager is notified of the task completion.
- If the Working Notes field was updated, the text is copied into the Running Notes field and blanked out. And if the task is related to a change request, the notes are also updated into the change request's running Working Notes field.
- If the status has just changed to Assigned (by launching the tasks from the main record or by the prerequisite tasks having been completed), the Date Due is set based on specified criteria. If the task was an auto-completing task, then it is marked as Completed and the assignee notified. Otherwise, the assigned person or assigned team is notified that the task is now assigned.
- When a prerequisite task is completed, its dependent tasks are updated, and if all prerequisite tasks are now completed, then the rule called Edit: Assign tasks when number of completed prerequisites meets criteria (API) runs. This rule checks if the task was conditional, and if so, checks the condition to see if it is met. If the task is not conditional or its condition is met, then it sets the Status to Assigned. Otherwise, it sets the status to Not Needed.
- When all tasks for a particular record are completed or marked as failed or not needed, the person / team assigned to the main request is notified that all tasks are done.
Measuring Time for a Task
In addition to time that is manually entered, the system tracks two kinds of elapsed time. The Working Hours to Complete field is set to the difference between the Date Created and Date Done, excluding the non-working hours of the assigned team and also excluding the time during which the Status was Queued, Conditional, or Not Needed. The Actual Working Hours field measures the time between the Actual Start Time and Actual End Time, excluding the non-working hours of the assigned team.
These fields can be used in reports to see the average amounts of time tasks of specific types are taking. They can also be compared against the Template Number of Hours to Due Date value, which sets the expected working hours that should be needed for the task.
Views
The Default View for the out-of-the-box Tasks table shows the Edit icon, status indicator, ID, Related To, Task Summary, Task Type, Status, and Assigned Team fields.
In addition to Default View and other standard views, the Tasks table includes other views for displaying task data in related records:
- Detail View: This view presents details that include the same columns as the Default View plus the Person Assigned to Task, Date Due, and Date Created fields.
- Obligations in Contracts: This is the default view of the All Contract Obligations related table in Contract records.
- Recurring Task View: This is the default view for the Manage Task/Obligation Recurrence related table in Contract records.
- View in Contract: This is the default view of the Tasks related table in Contract and Project records.
Saved Searches
The out-of-the-box Tasks table includes several saved searches that are used by rules. The following saved searches are available in the navigation menu by default:
- My Assigned Tasks: Finds tasks where the Status is Assigned and you are the assigned person or are on the assigned team.
- My Open Tasks: Finds tasks where the Status is Assigned and you are the assigned person.
- My Queued Tasks: Finds tasks where the Status is Queued and you are the assigned person or are on the assigned team.
- P: Assigned Person = user's name and Status != done: Finds all tasks where you are the assigned person and the Status is anything other than Completed/Approved.
Charts/Reports
In the out-of-the-box system, the Tasks table includes the following charts and reports:
- All Tasks, segmented by assignee: Bar chart that shows the number of tasks each person has assigned to them.
- Assignee's tasks in the past month, segmented by type: Bar chart that shows the number of tasks segmented by type that were created or updated in the past month for each assigned person.
- Average Time to Close Tasks by Assignee: Bar chart that shows the average number of working hours it took for each assignee to close tasks.
- Closed Tasks, by assignee: Bar chart that shows the number of tasks each assignee closed.
- Obligations by Responsible Party: Bar chart that shows the number of obligations that are open for each Responsible Party. Open obligations have a Status of Conditional, Queued, Assigned, or Waiting for Others.
- Obligations by Person: Bar chart that shows the number of obligations segmented by the Overdue? value that are open for each assigned person.
- Obligations by Team: Bar chart that shows the number of obligations segmented by the Overdue? value that are open for each assigned team.
- Obligations by Type: Ring chart that shows the number of open obligations by type.
- Open Tasks, by assignee: Bar chart that shows the number of open tasks for each assignee. Open tasks have any Status except for Completed/Approved.
- Outstanding Contract Tasks by Month: Bar chart that shows the number of pending contract-related tasks per month segmented by type of task.
- Tasks by Opportunity Company: Bar chart that shows the number of tasks by Opportunity Company.
Workflow
There is a simple workflow for tasks that currently executes no actions:
Automation
The following is a summary of the rules and validations that run when new tasks are created, either manually or from templates:
- When a task is created manually, if it is related to a Project whose status is Completed or Canceled, the user is prevented from saving the task.
- If the Date Due is in the past when the task is created, the user is warned but allowed to correct or save the task. These actions are performed by a rule called Create: All create validations.
- Next a rule called Create: All Creation Actions runs, and it performs several actions based on the record the task is related to. If the task template usage is Conditional, then the Status of the task is set to Conditional. Otherwise, the default status is Queued.
- If the task was assigned to an individual from the related record, such as the Change Manager or Project Manager, then the Assigned Team is set to that person's Primary Team. If no one was assigned due to a failure of the template, then the Assigned Team is set to the 1st Level Support Team.
- If the task is created in a Status of Assigned, and if the Assigned Person is not the creator and there is an Assigned Person, that person is emailed. Otherwise, the Assigned Team is emailed.
- If the task is for a change request and was generated as a single task, its sequence value is set to 1.
- If the task source is a task template that had prerequisite templates, then the corresponding tasks are set to be prerequisites. The prerequisites are then sorted and the one with the highest sequence value is set in another linked field called Highest Sequence.
- A rule called Create/Edit: Update Sequence based on Highest Sequence then runs to set the new task's sequence value to the highest sequence plus 1.
- Note that the Sequence field is purely informational. No automation is triggered based on the sequence, but it is there to provide a general idea of the order in which tasks will be triggered and completed.
- A rule called Edit: Handle Recurring Task runs on tasks that are recurring and related to non-canceled sources, and creates the next task in the sequence if the conditions to end recurrence aren't met yet.
Disabled Time Based Rules
There are two time based rules that are set up but not running. These are:
- TB: (DISABLED) Notify of upcoming task: It will notify the assigned person or team when the due date is one day away, once it is turned on. Currently it is disabled. There is a radio button at the bottom of the General tab in the table settings if this rule is desired. The schedule may need to be changed from every 10 years to something more useful.
- TB: (DISABLED) Set alert color to red if overdue: This sets the alert color to red when the date due has passed, so that views that use row coloring can show to users that the task is overdue.
Linking Tasks to Other Modules
Within the Tasks table, the Related To field indicates the type of record the task is associated with. If you need to use tasks within additional tables, there are several steps to that configuration. This advanced functionality is best done after attending training or with our Professional Services team's assistance:
- Open Setup [Tasks].
- Navigate to the Fields tab.
- Modify the Related To field by adding the desired table to the choice list.
- Create a linked set of fields sourced from the table in step 1.
- Make these fields visibility dependent on the value in the Related to field.
- Navigate to the table from step 1. Create a related table field pointing to the Tasks table.
- Determine what kinds of task generation you want to support: ad hoc, workflow based, user selected, or a combination. Depending on the requirement, you may need an intermediate table where that generation method is defined, or you may be able to use the existing Task Workflow and Task Templates tables, with the new Related To value added to each of them, to define the task workflows that you need.
- Add the relevant fields to your process table. This allows you to generate and manage tasks, as well as update the Task table rules to process tasks for this new table.