1. Click on the step in your workflow where you want to set up escalation criteria
2. Click on Setup Escalation link in the Properties pane. The wizard will display.
3. Clicking the ADD ESCALATION button displays the Escalation Condition tab. Multiple escalation triggers can be setup for the same step in a workflow.
4. Select a condition from the dropdown. There are 4 choices:

   1. Perform By - This condition is met when the user clicks the  (if the task is assigned to a particular user) or ( if the task is assigned to a role) Perform icon on the task in the users Task List or Saves/Locks the task before the configured due date. If the Task Notification email includes the {task.perform.url} then the deadline is met when the user clicks the link in the email to display the task.

   2. Perform Within - This condition is met when the user clicks the (if the task is assigned to a particular user) or ( if the task is assigned to a role) Perform icon on the task in the users Task List or Saves/Locks the task before the configured the configured duration). If the Task Notification email includes the {task.perform.url} then the deadline is met when the user clicks the link in the email to display the task.
      
   3. Complete By - This condition is met when the user clicks the Continue/Finish button on a form step in a workflow before the configured due date.

   4. Complete Within - This condition is met when the user clicks the Continue/Finish button on a form step in a workflow before the configured duration.

      Info
      An invalid due date template value will resolve to the current time to prevent any use-mode errors. The following message will appear in the frevvo logfile: "Escalation Due Date {DueDate} resolves to an invalid value":

      
      

5. Selecting the Perform By or Complete By conditions displays the following screen:
   1. The Due Date control dropdown displays all date controls in your form. Select from one of these choices or check the Use Fixed Date checkbox to enter a date/time as the deadline.
      
      
6. Selecting Perform Within or Complete Within displays this screen:
   1. Specify the amount of time the user has to perform or complete the task in Days, Hours or Minutes.
   2. Check the Business Calendar checkbox if you want to use the business days, times and timezone specified for your tenant to calculate a task deadline. The business calendar is set up at the tenant level by the tenant admin.
      
      
   Once the condition is selected,  click the Action tab to continue. If the condition specified is not met, then you must specify Reassignment of the task to a different user/role or Notification to the user/role it is currently assigned to that the deadline has expired.  You can configure both but at least one of these actions is required.
   
   1. Select from the following choices:
      1. None (Notify only) - Check this option if you want to send reminder emails to the user(s) who currently have the task on their Task List that the deadline is approaching and then send an email notification to them when the deadline is reached. The Notification tab becomes required. The task will not be reassigned or skipped. 
      2. Reassign Task - Reassignment sends the task to the user/role selected if the deadline is passed. Select whether the task will be reassigned to a Role, User or Unlock to Role: 
         1. If you select Role or User, then you must select the user or role in Select Role or User Assigne(s) field. Type ahead to display the Roles/Users in your tenant that begin with the letter you are typing and select from the list or enter comma separated templates. Remember that  userids and roles are case sensitive. If reassigning to a specific user, only one user id can be selected but you can reassign to more than one role.

         2. Unlock to Role - This option unlocks the task. Use this option for a step in your workflow that has a role assigned to it and you want to handle the situation where one user with that role has the task locked and the deadline for the task has passed. Selecting Unlock to Role unlocks the task and keeps it on the Task list of all users with the role after the deadline expires. Now it can be performed by any user with the specified role again.
            For example, let's say you have a step in your workflow that is assigned the manager role. Users Jerry and Jim are managers so the task shows up on both their task lists. Jerry clicks the Perform icon but he does not complete the step. The task remains on his task list and it is locked by him. If Jim tries to access the task or checks the Audit Trail he will see that the task is locked by Jerry. The deadline to complete the task passes. If Unlock to Role is selected as the reassignment option, the task remains on the task list of users with the manager role, in this case, Jerry and Jim, but it is unlocked and the audit trail shows a status of pending. Now it can be performed by any user with the manager role again.
            

         3. Reassigned users receive the Task Information email specified by the designer. So be sure to Setup Task Notification Email for the step in your workflow where you assigned escalations and you want to reassign the task after the deadline.

      3. Skip Task - check this option if you want the workflow to escalate automatically to the next step when the timer expires. When checked, no further configuration is required.
         
         

   Info
   Skipping a task is only supported if the next step in the workflow is a form/summary step. Configuring the Skip a task feature on the last step of your workflow will not work.

     

7. To set up Notifications:

   1. Click on the Notifications tab.

   2. Slide the toggle icon to the right to turn on Notifications
      
      

      1. Select whether a Role, User or the Current Owners from the Send To dropdown to specify who will receive email notification reminders when the deadline is reached.

      2. If you select Role or User, then you must list them in the Select User(s) or Role Recipient(s) field. Type ahead to display the Roles/Users in your tenant that begin with the letter you are typing and select from the list or enter comma separated templates. Remember that   userids and roles are case sensitive. You can specify more than one user or role.

      3. Specify an email(s), user(s), or role(s) to receive a CC: of the notification (optional.)

      4. Current Owners refers to user(s) who currently have the task on their task list. Partial templates with prefixes and suffixes can be used to create a complex role such as floor-manager when setting up Escalations.

         Expand
         title Click here for an example
         Insert excerpt Templatized Strings Templatized Strings nopanel true

         
         

      5. The subject and body of the notification email are shown once the Recipient(s) are selected. You can customize the email message by adding controls from your form as templates, workflow templates, common templates, escalation or task templates. Simply click the to show the templates or type ahead to filter the list.

      6.  provides built-in templates that can be used in escalation emails.

         • {flow.activity.escalation.duedate} - provides the deadline due date in GMT timezone. The tenant admin can change the timezone by selecting the correct timezone for your tenant when configuring the  Business Calendar . 
         • {flow.activity.escalation.condition} - resolves to either 'start' or 'complete' depending on the condition value.
         • {flow.activity.assignee} - current user/role
         • {flow.activity.escalation.reassignee} - resolves to the new user/role that the task is assigned to.

         For example, when a task is reassigned, you may want to specify the user/role that the task is being reassigned to (reassignee) in the email to avoid confusion. Simply add some text with this template in the Notification message section:  {flow.step.escalation.reassignee}.

         

8. Emails that serve as reminders as the deadline approaches are configured on the Reminders tab. Reminder emails notify the roles/user(s) originally assigned to this step.
   1. Specify the interval between reminders by entering the number of reminders in the Every field and select Days, Hours or Minutes from the Unit dropdown.
   2. You can limit the number of reminders by sliding the toggle icon to the right and entering the number of reminders closer to the deadline in the Occurence(s) field. If you enter a negative number in this field by mistake,  will change it to a 1 when you exit the field.
   3. Specify an email(s), user(s), or role(s) to receive a CC: of the notification (optional.)
   4. You can customize the email message by adding controls from your form as templates, workflow templates, common templates, escalation or task templates. Simply click the to show the templates or type ahead to filter the list.. Select them from the Control dropdown.  provides built-in templates that can be used in escalation emails.
      

9. Click the Submit button to save your setup. 

Escalations and Screenflows

Escalation should always be defined on the first step of a task - this is relevant when setting up Escalations for a Screenflow.

Screenflows are steps in a workflow that are performed by the same user. Consider a New Employee On-boarding workflow where steps 1 - 5 are designed to collect the Personal Information, W - 4 Allowances, State Allowances, Health Insurances preferences and Banking Information. Step 6 in the workflow is routed to the new employee's manager and step 7 is routed to HR for final processing. Steps 6 and 7 are not part of the screenflow as they are performed by users other than the new employee.

Think of the 5 steps of the screenflow as one task. Escalation for the screenflow task will work as long as you define the escalation on the first step of the screenflow task. The escalation configured on the first step of the screenflow applies to all steps of the screenflow. For example, if a Complete Within 2 days escalation is configured on Step 1 of screenflow, then the escalation is triggered if the whole screenflow is not completed within 2 days.

Escalation Examples

Expand
title Click here to see some Escalation Examples
Escalation Example 1 Let's consider a Time Sheet workflow consisting of 3 steps:  The employee accesses the Time Sheet workflow, fills in the form, signs it and clicks Continue. Live Forms sends that employee's manager a notification via email The manager clicks on the notification [on any device], views the Time Sheet approval request and approves it or sends it back for corrections. If approved by the manager, the workflow is routed to employees in the payroll department for final processing.  In this example, the designer has configured a 10 minute interval for the Manager to approve/reject the task. The Escalation tabs are shown: Image Modified Employee William submits his Time Sheet at 12:55 PM. The deadline to complete this task is 1:05 PM. William's Manager Jerry receives a Task Notification email notifying him there is a task that requires his attention. The email includes a link he can use to access it. Image Modified In this example, the deadline to complete the task is 1:05 PM. Based on the setup of the Reminder(s) section shown above, Jerry will receive 3 reminders every 3 minutes as the deadline approaches. The emails contain a link that Jerry can click to get to the task. The first one arrives as 12:56 PM, the second at 12:59 PM and the final reminder before the deadline arrives at 1:02 PM. Image Modified At 1: 05 PM, the task is removed from Jerry's task list since it was not completed in the allotted time and is routed to the task list of any users with the role of Supervisor. Jerry receives an email informing him that the deadline for the task has expired and the task is now assigned to any user with the role of Supervisor. Reassigned users receive the Task Information email specified by the designer. So be sure to Setup the Task Notification Emails. When Jack, a user with the role of Supervisor, access his task list he will see a task sent to him by the system and the Audit Trail shown in the image: Image Modified Escalation Example 2 Let's consider a situation where you might want to skip the task after the deadline has been reached. Imagine a workflow with a requirement that it must be approved by specific users in sequence. To prevent the chain of approvals from being delayed if one user does not perform their approval before the deadline, the designer can check the Skip the Task checkbox on the workflow steps and  will automatically complete the current step and create a pending task on the Task List of the next user. The Project Approval workflow shown in the image must be approved by Approver 1 and Approver 2 in that order. The escalation set up on the Approver 2 step automatically skips this step and advances the workflow to the next next step . Notice that notification and reminder emails are also configured. In this example, The Approver 1 and Supervisor steps do not have Escalation configured. The Approver 2 step has an escalation that specifies the step must be completed within 3 minutes.  If Approver 2 does not complete the task within 3 minutes, the Approver 2 step is skipped and the workflow advances to the Supervisor step. Approver 2 receives an Notification email stating that the workflow is now assigned to a Supervisor. Approver 2  receives 1 Reminder email during the 3 minutes interval.  Image Modified Here's what happens:    Project Details are submitted for approval.  Approver 1 receives a Task Notification email, clicks the link in it and performs step 1 of the workflow. The task is placed on Approver 2's task list. Approver 2 receives a Task Notification email which includes a link to the task. Approver 2 does not click the link in the email to perform the task. Approver 2 receives 1 reminder email. Approver 2 does not perform their approval within the 3 minutes. When the 3 minutes expires, the task is removed from Approver 2's Task List.  Approver 2 receives a customized email stating that the workflow has moved to a Supervisor for approval. All users with the role of Supervisor receives a Task Notification email which includes a link to the task.  Someone in the Supervisor group approves/rejects the task.

Activity Document Actions