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Using the Task List

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Using the Task List

The  Task List is an electronic listing of workflow tasks that require a user's attention. It is similar to an email Inbox. Users must log in to to access their task list. Tasks display in a small area on the left side of the screen. Clicking on an icon to perform a task related function will display any associated screens to the right or below the task list depending on it's state. 

Selected tasks will display with a blue background. An icon is provided to manually refresh the list.

Desktop/Tablet View of the Task List  

On This Page:

 

You will notice a different look and feel when the Task List runs on an iPhone.

Task List on the iPhone

Tasks appear on the task list for one of three reasons:

  • You clicked the save icon on a form or flow which had the saved/load feature enabled.
  • workflow was directed to you to perform the next step in the flow. 
  • A workflow was directed to a role (ex: Manager) to perform the next step in the flow, and you have that role. See embedding your task list

You will see your tasks when you login. If your user account has the special frevvo.designer role, you must click on the My Tasks tab to view your tasks. Customers using a  space, may have to click on the Important Items tab to access the Task List. The icon expands and contracts the task list . It will show a menu with two selections, My Tasks and Shared Items when it is expanded. A contracted Task list will show the associated screens to the right while an expanded Task List displays the screens below it.

Your tasks will be grouped by flow. For Example, all expense reports waiting for manager approval will be listed under the Expense Report Flow and vacation requests listed under Leave Approval. You can manually expand or contract the tasks for a specific flow by clicking anywhere on the flow title bar.

The  user that sent the the task to your Task List displays in the top left The date/time that the task was navigated to the user's task list is shown on the top right. Task List time is always displayed in the Task List and Audit Trail in the user's browser local timezone.on desktop and mobile devices. Task information, intended to provide additional information about the task for the user who is going to perform it, is configurable by the designer and appears in the bottom left.

The Tasks page lists your saved forms and flows and all the flows pending to be performed by you or pending to be performed by someone with one of your assigned roles. You can:

  • Click the icon to manually refresh the Task List. The expanded/contracted state of the refreshed task list will not change. 

 

  • Click the My Tasks to toggle between an expanded and contracted Task List.
  • Click the Inbox icon to display a non-expanded task list.  
  • Click the Recent icon to see all tasks you acted upon in the past 7 days. The task list is color coded. Tasks with a green background have been submitted, while those with an white background are pending/saved. A red background indicates tasks that have been aborted. The image shows one submitted task, two aborted tasks and two pending tasks.
  • Click the Saved icon to view all tasks currently saved by you
  • Click the icon to search for tasks you have performed in the past
  • Click the  icon to see how to embed your task list in another web page
 

The Tasks page displays a list of all your pending tasks by form/flow name. For each task you can:

  • Click the icon to display a Quick View of the task without displaying the entire form. Quick View allows the user who's responsibility it is to review the task (manager, supervisor, reviewer etc.) to add a comment, approve or reject, sign and pass it to the next user in the flow. Quick View is enabled by the designer. See below for the details.
  • Click the icon to perform the task. This icon is red when the task is locked by you so that only you can perform it. No other users with your role can perform this task unless you unlock it . The icon is blue when the task is shared between multiple users, for example when the task is assigned to a role i.e. group of users.
  • Click the icon to modify a task and send it back to a prior step, abort, reassign or reset a task. The Modify icon will only display if the user is a flow administrator, tenant admin or a designer user. 
  • Click the icon to see the event history for this specific task. For flows you will see all the users that have participated in the flow thus far. For saved forms & flows you will see each time you clicked save 
  • Click the icon to lock a task so you can perform it later
  • Click the icon to unlock this task and return it to the task pool
  • Click the to abort a task. The abort icon will only display if the user is a flow administratortenant admin or a designer user. 

Not all tasks have all the action icons listed above. For example saved forms may not have the lock, unlock or modify icons. This is because saved forms usually can only be performed by the user that saved them. Thus in that sense they are already locked by you and cannot be unlocked back to any other user. Workflow tasks may or may not have the modify or abort icons. The icons only display f the user is a flow administratortenant admin or a designer user. The modify action does not make sense for saved forms.

When a task step is assigned to a role rather than a specific user, that task will simultaneously appear on the task list of all people with that role. The first person that clicks the perform or lock icon will in effect claim that task. At this point all other users with this role can no longer perform this task. They will see the perform icon change as shown below to a indicate that it cannot be clicked. View the audit trail or hover over the icons to display a tool tip with the username of the person who currently has this task locked.

Quick Approval

The Quick Approval feature is particularly suited to flows designed for mobile devices. The Quick Approval icon will only appear for tasks where it is enabled by the designer.  See Setup Quick Approval for the details. Clicking the icon shows a Quick View of the task. Quick Approval provides an easy way to add a comment, approve something in your task list and pass the task to the next person, or reject the task and send it back to the previous step. 

Quick Approval does not lock the task.

Let's consider a Leave Approval workflow with two activities: the first step is a form which collects the pertinent information about the Leave request - employee name, starting date and duration of leave, etc. This step is filled out by any employee requesting a leave. The second step is a form that has a section named Manager Approval with a text area control for comments. The designer has setup the Quick View feature for this step in the flow and assigned the role of manager to it.  When a manager clicks on the Quick view icon, the Manager step displays as shown:. 

You will see the following on the Quick Approval Screen:

  • A summary text area that can be used to give a description of the task at the top. This is configurable by the designer and can be templatized via the "control" dropdown. See Setup Quick Approval for the details.
  • A text area in which the person who is viewing the task can enter a comment. Entering a comment on the Quick View screen is the same as typing the comment directly into the form.

  • Approve button. Clicking this flashes a "Please Wait" message and then displays "Task successfully approved". The workflow moves to the next step. The task will disappear from your task list.
  • Reject button. Clicking this rejects the task to the step selected from the Prior Activity dropdown. A reason for the rejection must be provided. The message "Task successfully rejected" will display.
  • Details button. Clicking this will display the form as usual. This action is identical to clicking on the perform this task icon. Clicking on the Details button will lock the task.

Quick Approval is not available if you are using the Task List within Confluence.

Perform a Task

Click the icon to perform a task in your task list. This icon is red when the task is locked by you and it is blue  when the task is available to multiple users to perform.

A task will appear in your task list when you are the person assigned to perform the next step in a workflow. When you click the perform icon, the flow will load into your browser at its current step. This workflow step may have been assigned specifically to you to perform or it may have been assigned to a person having one of your roles (ex: Manager).

A task will also appear in your task list if you clicked the save icon/button on a form/flow in order to complete it at a later time. When you click the perform icon for a saved task, the form/flow will load back into your browser with all the form field values as you left them when you last clicked save.

If the task displays the disabled icon, this indicates that the task is currently being performed by another person or that another person has clicked the lock icon to reserve the task. When this is the case, the only person that can complete this task is the person with the lock. View the audit trail or hover over a locked task to see who holds the lock. You can ask that person to unlock the task if you want to perform it. You can also ask your tenant administrator to unlock a task.

If you see the error in the image below when clicking on the Perform this Task icon on the Task list, it is most likely because the visibility of the flow is set to private instead of public in tenant or public. Notify the form/flow designer that you are receiving this error.

The Unsaved Changes Warning Message displays if data is changed when performing a task and the changes are not saved i.e. clicking theInbox icon without saving the changes.

Audit Trail

Click the icon to view a task's event history. A new event is added to a task's history each time:

  • The form/flow is saved
  • The form/flow is submitted
  • The form/flow is aborted
  • The flow is continued and becomes pending for the next person
  • The flow is modified and reset back to an earlier step and becomes pending again for the person that previously performed that step.

Here is the event history for a form that was saved twice and not yet submitted.

Each events contain the following information:

  • The state - Pending, Saved, Submitted, Aborted or Waiting.
  • The user name of the person who caused the event (ex: "By: James Blume" or "By:Anonymous " if the event was performed by an anonymous user).

    You can see the user id by hovering over the user first and last name for any entry in the audit trail.

  • A date/time stamp when the event occurred The time displays in the user's browser local timezone.
  • When the event in the history has a state of "Pending", the user name or role(s) for whom the task is awaiting the next action (ex: "For Roles Manager", "For User: jerry")

Here is the event history for a form that was saved thrice and then submitted.

The icons displayed at the left of each event indicate:

  • - The task can be continued (displayed for pending events, and pending flows)
  •  - Displayed for saved forms
  • - This task was modified and reset to this step
  • - This task was finished
  •   - The task is locked by a user
  • - The task is aborted
  • - The task has been reassigned to another user or role by an administrator
  • - User can view every completed task in a flow that the user performed. The legacy anonymous task is also supported. Refer to View My Task for the details

Here is the event history for a Mortgage Application workflow that was initiated by an anonymous user ("By:Anonymous "). Next the task was performed by the manager Jack Smith. Next supervisor Sam Spade rejected the task back to the step previously performed by the manager. This workflow now resides on the manager's Task List.

Here is the event history for the same workflow as above. After the reject, the task was performed again by manager Jack Smith and is now on the task list of all users having the role Processing.

Supervisor Sam Spade, who is assigned the Processing role, performs the final step in the workflow and submits it.

Here is the event history of a 2nd Mortgage Application workflow. The flow was initiated by an anonymous user (Johnson) and then approved by manager Jack Smith. The tenant admin, John Castle, then aborted the task. Abort removes the task from everyone's task list. This task can still be found by any user that performed one or more steps or by the tenant admin via Search History.

Use the history message property to add custom messages to the audit trail for the steps of a workflow.

The audit trail will log an entry each time the workflow navigates to a different user and each time the current user saves the flow. The audit trail will log a single entry when the same user performs multiple steps. You can configure the Save on Navigate feature if you want to see an entry in the Audit Trail each time the flow navigates to a different step even if they are performed by the same user.

Anonymous Steps and the Audit Trail

Workflows designed with an Email/Anonymous Task step will show the task in a WAITING state.

Workflows that assign the step to an Email Address show the step performed by the customer (anonymous user) in a Pending state and displays the Email address it was sent to.

View My Task

Users logged into  are able to view workflow steps that they performed by clicking on the icon in the Audit trail. When you are viewing your task, you may notice the read-only view watermark. This is to remind you that you can view the information but can not make changes to it.

You will not see this icon for rejected tasks, tasks that have been reset/reassigned/aborted by a tenant or flow admin, or tasks that have been saved to your Task List.

You will only be able to view tasks that you have performed.

Let's say you submitted a Leave Approval Request to your manager and you want to view the information that you entered. You are not sure if your manager has approved it or if your request is pending your Manager's approval (pending state).

Here is how you find it:

  1. Login to your tenant
  2. Click on My Tasks or Task List under Important Items if you are using a space
  3. Click the Search icon
  4. Select the workflow from the dropdown and set any other search criteria. Click Submit. 
  5. Search for your task in the returned List.
  6. Click the  Audit icon to display the Audit Trail
  7. Click the View icon to  display the flow step.
  8. Click the Audit icon again to return to the Task List.

View a Screenflow Task

Screenflows are sequential workflow steps performed by the same user. These sequential steps are considered one task. Screenflow tasks always display the  View icon on the last screenflow step only, however, the task opens on the first screenflow step.

Consider a New Employee Onboarding workflow with the following steps:

  • Personal Information - New employee fills out their personal information
  • Allowances - this step collects the new employee"s information for the federal W - 4 form
  • I- 9 - this step collects the new employee's information for the federal I - 9 form
  • Confirmation - the new employee reviews the entered data and confirms it is correct
  • HR - the workflow is sent to the HR department to complete processing.

The new employee completes the first four steps and sends the workflow to HR for processing,

The Audit Trail will show the View icon on the step pending for HR. The  employee clicks the View icon and the flow opens on the Employee Information step. The employee clicks the Next button to navigate through all four screenflow steps.