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Task Creation

Task Creation is automated actions that happen as a New Task is created.

Activation Dates

Activation Date is the attribute that determines when a Task is Ready. Most of the time, it makes sense that as soon as a Task has been created, it is ready to be solved. However, some Tasks can have dependencies on external factors, which either cause them to be unsolvable until a certain time has passed or simply they shouldn't be solved before a given timeframe. It could for example be a dependency on a nightly job that must run first to cause an update from one system to another.

The default setting is that Activation Date is disabled, and a Task will be active as soon as it is created.

If enabled, it is possible to set any amount of days which will be added to the creation date before the Task is active. You can always find the Task in the Ready queue, it will just not be visible for the Mates, as the TakeNext endpoint does not return Tasks that are not yet active.

Regardless if Activation Date is enabled or not, you can always overwrite it when creating a new Task. With the CreateTask, it is done by adding the `activationDate´ attribute and setting it to a date.

Due Dates

Due Dates help keep track of if Tasks are solved in due time. It adds a deadline - Due Date - to the Task, which will be a set amount after the ActivationDate. It also sets an Urgent Date which serves to remind the users that this Task is going to reach the deadline soon.

Deadline can be set by adding business days, adding calendar days or having a fixed deadline based on a CRON expression, e.g. all tasks created have a deadline every friday at 12.00.

Once a Task becomes urgent and again once the deadline has passed, the Task will show up with an alert in the overview and on the Task Card.

When the Mate takes Tasks from the Ready queue, it will always try to take the most urgent Task first.

Key Duplication

Key Duplication keeps track of which Keys have previously been seen on the Process, and if needed will prevent new tasks with the same Keys from being created.

It is possible select from four different Key Duplication rules:

  • Allow all tasks: This is the default selection on new processes. It does not forbid any Key Duplication.

  • Forbid key if seen before: Will prevent the same key from being used more than once in the lifetime of the Process. It can be a bit extreme, but e.g. if your Process will initialize new employees in the HR system and you want to ensure the same Employee number is never initialized twice then this is a good failsafe.

  • Forbid key if found in active queues: This will prevent two tasks from being active with the same key as the same time. Once a Task is solved, a new one can be created with the same key. This is great if you have another software automation to create Tasks, and it uses a simple SQL Query to identify which Tasks to create several times a day.

  • Forbid key if found in time period: This will prevent the same key from being used in a given period. It is great if for instance you want to send a welcome email to all new customers, but you want to avoid the same email receiving two emails within 60 days.

If a Task has a single key then that it is given that Key Duplication only looks at the. If a Task has two or more keys, then the combination of keys is seen as the unique key when comparing.

Task Approval

With Approval enabled, Tasks will not be sent to the Ready queue automatically. Instead, they will be sent to the Needs Approval queue until an employee approves them.

When setting up Approvals, there is three possible Approval rules: - Any User: Anyone can approve a Task, and the approval serves mostly as a stop-gap after the Task is created and before the Mate can pick it up. - Any User but Creator: Anyone can approve the Task except the employee who created it. This way, you enforce 4-eyes on every Task that goes through the system. - Only Process Owner: Only employees with the Process Owner role are allowed to approve the Tasks. Use this for sensitive processes, where e.g. special training is needed beforehand.