Automatic task reassigmnet

[cchalmers]

Good Morning,

This is point we have raised before and I was wondering if there was any potential development on the feature. This is the ability for the system to be able to automatically reassign tasks associated to a call to the new assign user. 

Currently all users are having to manually reassign each task, if they then forget, we are having to chase them up or log in as the admin account to reassign.

Can you provide any updates. 

Thank you

Colin

[Gerry]

I would suggest not assigning tasks to individuals but to groups or roles, this would solve that problem all together. 

 

Gerry

[Steven Boardman]

@cchalmers we do have an experimental feature which may help here, see the wiki link below regarding:

Completing Someone's Else's task on a request

https://wiki.hornbill.com/index.php/Service_Manager_Experimental_Features

Does this help?

Steve

[cchalmers]

Thank you both for your replies, I think I will try the approach that @Gerry has suggested, do you know if this will show who completed the task?

We are using the complete on someone else behalf the issue is the request to do this keeps coming to the same few people and trying to reduce single point dependencies.

 

[Steven Boardman]

Hi @cchalmers, if a task is assigned to a team, and an individual completes it, it will record which individual actually completed the task for audit purposes. 

On the other approach, a task can have an owner and an assignee (role, team, individual, variable).  It does sound like you may have the owner set up as 'admin' so, in this scenario you are correct, you are kind of a situation where you have single point dependancies, with your users having to turn to the admin to complete tasks to progress the requests.

With the experimental feature mentioned above, it extends the options and should remove the need for anyone to have to ask for tasks to be completed on someone else's behalf.  Basically if a task is assigned to an individual, and the parent request is then assigned to another individual who does not own the task, if the experimental feature is enabled, that user will be able to complete the task, even if they are not the owner, or assignee, this is because they are in a team which supports the service against which the request has been raised. For audit purposes it will always record the individual who completes the task.

Note - As per the wiki instructions, the new owner of the parent ticket, may not see the quick complete option on the task which they don't own, but if they open the task, they can complete it from the Complete button.

This may not work for everyone but it may help alleviate the issue where there is a single point of dependancy 

[cchalmers]

Steve, @Gerry

As a result of making this switch I have had many comments about the number of notifications now being received.

Are we able to stop the task notifications just for these linked to the Service request assignee role?

[Steven Boardman]

@cchalmers it isn't possible to de-activate notifications for certain roles at this time, obviously if this changes then we will post back and advise.

Did you consider the alternate approach using the experimental option i mentioned above?  As i recall you wanted to avoid the single point of dependancy, and the ability to complete someone's else task on a request (if you belong to the same team) would give you that, and would avoid the noise of the notifications which are being received by everyone with that specific role. 

https://wiki.hornbill.com/index.php/Service_Manager_Experimental_Features

In my example, if user A is assigned a task, User B, or User C who are in the same team would have the ability to select and complete the task, even if it was assigned to User A, without the need for a manager / supervisor to have to re-assign it first to User B or User C.

Hope that helps 

[cchalmers]

The main issue with that was that we often pass calls between teams and the users forget to pass the linked tasks.

This would then stop the users in the other team of completing the task.

[Steve Giller]

For our facilities team we do assign tasks as they tend to do a much larger number of much simpler jobs (e.g. changing a light bulb) and the ability to simply "tap" a task closed on a mobile phone is the real selling point of the product to them.

If we were assign tasks to the role, rather than an individual the list of tasks can quickly become unmanageable - jumping from maybe 20 at a time to over 100 - so if there are any plans to reassign tasks with calls please add us as an interested party.
It's not a dealbreaker as calls are not currently often reassigned in facilities (if someone is taken ill during the day or an unexpected delay means requests rolling over into tomorrow when that staff member is not in might cause it) but it's always good to be covered.

[Steven Boardman]

@cchalmers this experimental feature would allow any member of any team which supports the service against which the request is logged, complete an activity which is assigned to another user.  So supposing you have defined teams which support the services which you offer, then even if the request is reassigned between those teams which support the service, then anyone in any of the teams which support that service would be able to complete the tasks. 

Of course this is all audited in the task, and the timeline of the request, so you will know who has completed the task. 

The link above gives more detail, but in essence the feature would need turning on, and any analysts who you wanted to have this ability would need one of the following roles:

Incident Management Full Access, Change Management Full Access, Problem Management Full Access, Release Management Full Access, Service Request Full Access

Finally, if you didn't have team's defined against your services (i.e. all teams could support them, then it would be limited to the membership of your specific team).

@DeadMeatGF would the above feature work for your facilities teams?  i would need to confirm this is also supported on the mobile, and if not look at extending this out.

In terms of the reassignment of tasks, on reassignment of the request i am not aware we have anything in the pipeline at the moment.  

What i would comment on, is in your business process, if you used the Get Request Info node, and checked for the current Owner in front of each task node, and then used the Assign to Owner variable on the tasks, it will mean any subsequent tasks would be assigned to the current owner of the requests.  Obviously this would leave the one / s which are currently active, to deal with either through the owner, reassigning them, or utilising the above experimental feature, which would allow other members of their team to complete tasks which are not directly assigned too them.

Hope that helps

 

 

 

[Steve Giller]

@Steven Boardman I can make it work with the suggestions above, but it would, as far as the mobile app goes, make the ease of use (i.e. here's a list of tasks, tap the one you've completed) for that particular Request pretty much redundant, as far as I can tell they'd have to go into the list, find the call that's been reassigned, open it, open the task, then complete it from there.

The task is created after the assignment of the request, so the method you suggest is being used, it's just on the relatively infrequent occasions that a request is transferred after this stage that this situation will occur, and in a team that is both lacking in tachnical savvy (and frankly isn't too interested in learning new tricks!) it's a small stumbling block.