New Activity View

[Daniel Dekel]

I wanted to tell you about the new features being released to the Activity View.

Based on an experimental flag ( experimental.feature.bpm.allowcustomtaskfields ) the new view will be available.

Apart from the obvious UI change, there are several interesting new things:

1. Less clicks based on the situation:

If the Activity doesn't require reason,  time spent and other outcomes details, the outcomes will be displayed straight away as you open it instead of showing a complete button and then displaying the outcomes.

* Activity view mode when no further input is needed

* Activity view mode when input is needed

 

2. Custom Fields:

By enabling the experimental flag, the BPM will allow you to add custom fields for a task to be presented when completing the task or a specific set of fields when selecting a particular outcome. The values can then be used in the BPM. Custom fields are very much like the ones in the Progressive Capture.

* Outcome RAISE PROBLEM is selected.

* Further questions are presented to the user

 

3. Enforced amending in specific situations:

There are three basic types of Tasks (or Activities);

• Manual Activity - Created by the user in the Collaboration Core. This one is fully editable and remains mostly as it was before.
  • Outcomes - by default will not allow editing and only one outcome "Done" will be used. Use Templates to customize the outcomes.
• BPM Task - This one is created by the BPM and can only re-assign and change the dates.
• BPM Approval - This one is also created by the BPM and it will not allow editing, only complete.

 

4. Reason and Time Spent:

Time Spent can be hidden in the Template configuration. The Chargeable option will also be hidden if no time spent is displayed.

If the Reason is not required for the specific selected Outcome, it will not be displayed.

 

5. Material Design Style and Layout change

New style has been applied based on Material Design.

The Action buttons were moved from the bottom of the popup to the right hand side. This is because of several issues we had with unknown number of outcomes. That lead to problems in the layout and after a few attempts to solve this issue we decided to use a vertical layout for the buttons.

 

NOTES:

* The Mobile App does not support yet Custom Fields. Therefore when opening an activity that has custom fields, it will not allow completing.

 

Hope you like these changes and please let us know what do you think. We still have time to amend things before we remove the experimental flag.

Thanks,

Daniel.

[Martyn Houghton]

@Daniel Dekel

Looks good. In terms of the outcomes in the first screen shot how many do they show before a drop down for any remaining ones are shown.

Is this available now, or do we need to await a certain build?

Cheers

Martyn

[Daniel Dekel]

@Martyn Houghton, I'm glad you like it.

It is in Live now based on the experimental flag.

Outcomes do not show with a drop down anymore. Because of the vertical layout, it will show all of them without a risk of breaking the layout ;-)

Daniel.

[Martyn Houghton]

@Daniel Dekel

Thanks for the confirmation. I go turn it on now.

Cheers

Martyn

[Dan Munns]

@Daniel Dekel thanks for the update. Looks good.

Any update on making the task capture fields dynamic? 

[Daniel Dekel]

Thanks @Dan Munns.

We are working on a "secret" new project ;-) that involves making a new form component. Therefore we will add that new capability to the new form.

But unfortunately that can take some time as is not that simple, but it will be in the new component, that's for sure.

Daniel.

[samwoo]

10 minutes ago, Daniel Dekel said:

Thanks @Dan Munns.

We are working on a "secret" new project ;-) that involves making a new form component. Therefore we will add that new capability to the new form.

But unfortunately that can take some time as is not that simple, but it will be in the new component, that's for sure.

Daniel.

Ooh exciting! Looking forward to the details

[Martyn Houghton]

@Daniel Dekel

We have turned this on, but hit an issue with existing incidents, where we do need to complete the 'Reason' field, but this is not appearing for existing requests.

How does the activity view determine in the 'Reason' needs to be completed? Is it the mandatory flag only?

Cheers

Martyn

[Daniel Dekel]

Hi @Martyn Houghton,

Yes, for each Outcome you can set if the Reason is required or not. That will have to be set either in the BPM or if is a Manual Activity, in the template.

We are currently debating if we should bring it back and show it always or keep it simple as this was the one of the main ideas of this new view.

Would be interesting to know your thoughts about this.

Thanks,

Daniel.

[Martyn Houghton]

@Daniel Dekel

I think you will need  three radio button options to complement the the current "When this outcome is selected a reason has to be provided" .

• Do not display
• Display, but not mandatory
• When this outcome is selected a reason has to be provided

The first item is the current state with the new view when not mandatory and the third one is the existing state with mandatory set. New second option allows for it to be optionally completed, i.e. visible for entry but not mandatory. From a migration point of view, it would make sense for the second option to be the default as this is the current behaviour in the original view and we can only change this going forward via the BPM for new requests.

Cheers
Martyn
 

[Dan Munns]

1 minute ago, Martyn Houghton said:

I think you will need  three radio button options to complement the the current "When this outcome is selected a reason has to be provided" .

• Do not display
• Display, but not mandatory
• When this outcome is selected a reason has to be provided

+1 this. 

We need the option to remove the field for a number of our BPMs so not a fan of show it always

[Daniel Dekel]

@Martyn Houghton,

We were thinking on something similar.

Thanks

Daniel.

 

[Martyn Houghton]

@Daniel Dekel

Great, if the default behaviour can be as it is now, display but not mandatory, it will mean existing requests with there BPM will continue to function as is and we can then update our BPM specifically to take advantage of this new option to hide.

Cheers

Martyn

[Daniel Dekel]

Yes @Martyn Houghton,

We will probably have an option in the Task level to hide the Reason. In that case it will be hidden unless you select an outcome that requires the Reason, the it will be displayed.

Cheers,

Daniel.

[Martyn Houghton]

@Daniel Dekel

As long as there is an option to mirror the current status which is display but not mandatory, which is also the default behaviour with the new view, rather than the current default which is to hide it.

Cheers

Martyn

[Daniel Dekel]

Yes @Martyn Houghton, that's the idea ;-)

[Dan Munns]

@Daniel Dekel can we also have the 'undefined' hidden if the question is not answered. 

I feel like I ask this question every time a new PC type field is deployed and there is no consistency with them.

 As we don't have dynamic fields yet, the work around of putting all relevant variables in the field now doesn't work either. Can this be resolved ASAP as it is a show stopper for this team going live (supposed to be next week) 

 

[Miro]

Hi @Dan Munns    

Are you referring here to custom questions answers in task? Or progressive capture answers in request view?

Thanks,
Miro

[Dan Munns]

@Miro the screenshot above is from the capture answers within a task. 

The PC forms should all stay blank if the question is not answered (including ones that are unanswered and hidden due to dynamic forms) 

[Miro]

@Dan Munns never meet that problem before. Just tested it with simple text inputs and all stay empty when no value was provided. What type of fields you've been using here? Need to replicate that. Also what browser/os are you using?

[Dan Munns]

@Miro it is a mixture of dynamic lists (drop downs mainly) and free text fields. 

Only free text types display 'undefined'. I have stacked up to 4 variables into a single custom field and this is when they display undefined. 

Browsers affected:  Chrome Version 67.0.3396.87 (Official Build) (32-bit); Internet Explorer 11 Version 11.492.16299.0; Microsoft Edge

I am using Win10 Enterprise, but can see the undefined text in all above browsers on Win7 Enterprise as well. 

 

[Dan Munns]

@Daniel Dekel it has been noted that authorisation task owners are unable to reassign the task with the setting experimental.feature.bpm.allowcustomtaskfields enabled.

Disabling the setting allows reassigning the task as usual. 

Is this expected behaviour? 

[Daniel Dekel]

@Dan Munns, yes that is the expected behaviour. Please read the section 3 of this post in the BPM Approvals (Authorisation).

Daniel.

[Dan Munns]

@Daniel Dekel is there a reason why authorisation owners can no longer edit the task? If a person is on annual leave / off sick etc then we need to be able to reassign the authorisation.

[Gary.Reynolds]

@Daniel Dekel We are experiencing the same issue as @Martyn Houghton in that we have turned this on, but hit an issue with existing activities, where we do need to complete the 'Reason' field, but this is not appearing for existing or new activities. The activity is created on a schedule from a template and the 'require reason' is set for each outcome within the template. I have turned this experimental feature of and the reason field is available again for open activities.