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Oracle Common Application Calendar User Guide
Release 12.1
Part Number E13407-04		Go to Table of Contents
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Using HTML Tasks

This chapter covers the following topics:

Accessing the Oracle Task Manager Interface

There are several ways to access Task Manager. It can be run as a standalone module where you access tasks directly to create personal tasks or it can be called from other modules to provide integrated solutions. You can also access Task Manager through the HTML Calendar module from a link on the main navigation bar. The following modules use the Task Manager to create and manage tasks:

Viewing the Task Summary

Use the Task Summary to:

Seeded Query "My Open Tasks"

HTML Task Manager provides a seeded query "My Open Tasks" which allows you to search for only the tasks where the user is the owner or assignee. If a task is owned by or assigned to a group or team that you belong to, then that task will not be retrieved from the "My Open Tasks" seeded query.

Be aware that you cannot delete the seeded query "My Open Tasks".

Personalizing Your Saved Searches

In addition to the seeded query "My Open Tasks", Task Manager allows you to use the Task Search window to create a personalized saved search. You can personalize your search results in four ways:

When searching tasks from the seeded "My Open Tasks" saved search, only the tasks for which the user is the owner or assignee will be displayed in the Task Summary window. If a task is owned by or assigned to a group or team that you belong to, then that task will not be retrieved from the "My Open Tasks" seeded query.

To be able to list that task, you must perform a search separately by creating another saved query which will show all tasks for which the user is the owner or assignee, as well as all tasks that the group or team for which the user is a member of is listed as the task owner or assignee.

Deletion of Saved Search Records

You can delete your saved search records except the seeded search "My Open Tasks". After each deletion, you are directed to the Task Search screen with a confirmation message.

Note: Before entering information for a new saved search, you must click Clear in the Task Search window. Otherwise, the information that appears in each field reflects the default Saved Search that appears in the drop-down list. For example, in the Assignments region, the default setting is to search tasks with any role since the option button "Task with Any Role" is selected. This allows you to search for tasks for which you are neither the owner nor the assignee, but with view access.

Select the Task with Role option button to search for tasks assigned to another owner or assignee.

Select the Use as Summary Page Default check box to have the search execute upon opening the Task Summary window.

Select the Use as Default Query for Combo View check box to have the search execute upon opening the Combination window in Calendar.

Viewing Task Details

Any applicable values entered in the Create Task window are carried over to the Task Details window. In addition to updating or deleting an existing task in the Task Details window, you can also view task hierarchy if a task has a parent or child task associated.

In the heading of the Task Details window, you can see the source name, source document number, task subject, and task number for the task. Click the Source document number link to view the source of an existing task or click the subject link to view the details of that record.

If a task has a parent or child task associated, you can also find the Hierarchy icon displayed next to the source document field. Otherwise, this icon becomes invisible. Click the Hierarchy icon to access the Task Hierarchy window for the current task with all its associated parent or child tasks displayed in a tree hierarchical structure starting from the root. In addition, if you have appropriate access privileges to access the parent task, you should also see an icon enabled for the parent task number that allows you to drill down to the actual parent task. Otherwise, this parent task icon becomes invisible if you don't have the security access granted to you.

Updating Customer Information

You can update the task information by modifying appropriate fields including customer contacts. However, any updates to the customer for an existing task will remove the existing contacts for the task. After an update, the customer name and number are changed, and the contacts and contact points for the former customer are also removed from that task. Therefore, you must select new contacts from the newly added customer for that task.

Note: If a product integrated with Task Manager passes customer data into the system, the information automatically populates the customer area of the Task Details window based on the source.

View Parent/Child Tasks With Task Security

In the Task Hierarchy window, you can view the hierarchical tree structure of a given task. However, the access of each task in the tree hierarchy is aligned with the security access you have in Tasks.

Creating a Task

You can create tasks through the following two ways based on your business needs:

Creating a Quick Task

Instead of creating a regular task, you can choose to quickly create a simple task, a light version of a task, by clicking the "Create Quick Task" button if it is shown in the Tasks Summary window. You proceed to the Create Quick Task window to enter the following information:

To create a simple task, you need to enter a combination of basic task elements (type, name, description, and category) and date information (date, start and end time), and optionally enter resource assignments and task references information.

Features of Quick Tasks

Since a quick task is a light version of a regular task, there are some restrictions in quick task:

After creating a quick task, you can still update the task in the Task Details window.

Create a Regular Task

Use the Create Task window to create a new task by entering the following information:

Basic Task Information

Enter basic task information including task type, subject, description, priority, status, categories, and parent task. You can use drop-down menus to select desired task information.

For task types and priorities, only the mapped task types and task priorities are listed in the relevant list of value options. If none of the task types or priorities is mapped to your object, then all types and priorities will be displayed in the list of values.

Select the Private check box if this task is considered a private task. Click the Notify check box if you want to notify assignees of the newly created task.

If you are creating a child task for another task, then search a parent task by task subject or task number if necessary. However, child and parent tasks must have the same source, such as Service Request. For example, the child task cannot have the source as Lead and the parent task cannot have the source as Service Request.

Task Dates

Enter appropriate dates for your task including time zone, task start and end dates and time for planned, scheduled, and actual dates, as well as duration.

You must select the "Use For Calendar" button for one of the planned, scheduled, or actual task dates. HTML Calendar uses this button to determine which date would be used for your task when displaying it in your personal calendar views. Additionally, when a task is displayed in a personal calendar, these task start and end dates are essential to the resources availability calculation which is used to determine whether the resources assigned to the task are considered as Free, Busy or Tentative available.

Time Zone: If the time zone is not selected for a task and the profile option Enable Timezone Conversions is set to yes, then all times are displayed in the server time zone along with a hint explaining the time zone. If the time zone is selected for a task, and the profile option Enable Timezone Conversions is set to yes, then times appear in the selected time zone along with a hint explaining the time zone. If Enable Timezone Conversions is set to no, then times display in the server time zone with no hints.

Task End Date Based on Start Date and Duration

After you enter start date and duration values for a task, the task's end date and time will be automatically calculated based on the start date and time plus the duration value chosen.

If a task has start date and time but without end date, then the following profile options will be checked first to determine the task end date:

Condition 1: Only One Profile Option Is Set

If only one profile is set, then the end date is defaulted based on the profile.

Condition 2: Both Profile Options Are Set

If both profiles are set, then the "Task Manager: Default Duration" overrides the profile "Task Manager: Copy Start Date to End Date" which means the end date is the start date and time plus the duration.

During the task updates, you can update the end date, but the duration field will be displayed only if the calculated duration matches one of the values in the drop-down menu. Otherwise, the duration field will be set to Null.

Note: The default task date is set to "Scheduled", but you can manually override it by selecting another option button and then specify task start and end dates in the corresponding fields.

Task Assignments

In the Assign To region, you can search for appropriate resources of any type by first name, last name, or user name as an owner or assignee for this task.

In general, the task creator is automatically defaulted to be an owner of the task. The task creator has the ability to:

After creating a task, you can use the Assignments window to update or add more resources to a task. See: Assigning a Resource to a Task.

Customer Information

In the Customer region, you can specify customer type to be organization, person, or relationship for your task. Select a customer name based on the selected customer type. Use the phone number LOV to select an appropriate number for the customer.

You must enter customer information here so that customer's contacts, not employee contacts, can then be specified later in the Contacts window. See: Defining Task Contacts.

You can update customer information later for an existing task. However, any updates to the customer for an existing task will remove the existing contacts for the task. After an update, the customer name and number are changed, and the contacts and contact points for the former customer are also removed from that task. Therefore, you must select new contacts from the newly added customer for that task.

Task References Information

In the References region, depending on the source object, Task Manager automatically displays all the reference information that will be created for the organization, person, and relationship as read-only text.

In addition, since desired references (or Relate To) can be mapped to a source during implementation, only the mapped references are listed in the list of value options. If none of the references is mapped to your object, then all references will be displayed in the list of values.

If there are more than one mapped objects, a list of reference information will be displayed for further selection.

For example, the following reference information should be displayed for a task if it is created for:

This reference information allows you to easily identify business objects with similar features or attributes for future references. For example, if a task relates to a specific business campaign, you can relate it to that campaign so the information appears to anyone who views the task.

After creating a task, you can use the References window to update or add more references or business objects to a task. In addition, you can also drill down to the actual references by clicking the object number links if you have appropriate access privileges.

TASK REFERENCE FOR A RESOURCE CATEGORY "PARTY"

When a new task is created with resources (owner, assignee, customer, and customer contact information) of category "party" in the Forms-based or HTML Tasks, additional party references are also created and visible in the Tasks:

However, if the reference creation adds any duplicate references in Tasks, then an error message will appear stating that the reference already exists. If calling modules call the JTF_TASK_REFERENCES_PUB. Create_References ( ) or JTF_TASK_REFERENCES_PUB.Update_References ( ) API that leads to the creation of duplicate references, then the system will ignore the duplicated references.

Users can manually delete existing references that are shared by one or more attributes without problems. For example, if you delete a customer contact name "John" for Vision Corporation, then system will automatically delete the contact "John" as well as the relationship information "John at Vision Corporation", but it will leave the organization "Vision Corporation" unchanged in the system.

Assigning a Resource to a Task

When searching for resources of any types, you can search by first name, last name, or user name. In addition, any inactive resources will not be displayed in the resource list of values. In addition, when you manually update or add any resources (owners or assignees) with a resource category of party in the Forms-based or HTML Tasks, additional party references are also created and visible in the Tasks. If the resource type is Person (such as Jeff Walsh), then one reference of that person for every task assignment will be created. If the resource type is Relationship, then three associated party references will be created for every task assignment:

However, if it adds any duplicate references in Tasks, then an error message will appear stating that the reference already exists.

When an assignment is updated with a different resource, existing task references for the old assignment are removed and new references are created.

Note: You can change the owner of a task but you cannot delete the owner altogether.

Click the Remove check box to delete a selected resource. If you manually delete a resource name in the Name field without changing the resource type, the selected resource, regardless of an owner or assignee, is still valid. This is because the resource id is stored as a hidden parameter if you leave the resource type unchanged. Make sure to change the resource type drop-down list if you try to delete a resource name in the Assignments window.

Specifying the Task Effort

Use the Efforts window to specify either the planned, duration, or actual effort. Each effort is defined as follows:

Creating a Repeating Task or Appointment

Use the Repeating window to create a series of tasks for a regularly scheduled task or appointment. The start date must be specified before you can create a repeating task or appointment.

After creating a repeating task or appointment, you can further update the repeating rule by changing the frequency of a repeating series.

In addition, similar to the delete a repeating appointment feature, after updating a repeating appointment or inviting new attendees for the selected repeating appointment, you need to make selections in the Update Appointments window about how the changes are to be implemented (only this appointment, all appointments, or all future appointments). Invitees of a repeating appointment or task can either reject all or accept all of them, instead of responding to each invitation individually.

Perform the following steps to create a repeating task or appointment.

Steps

  1. In the Repeating window, the Start Date field is populated with the date the task or appointment was originally created. You cannot edit this date.

  2. Click the Date Picker to access the select a date window and select an End Date for the repeating task or enter a number in the count text field to define the number of times you want the task to repeat. You must use the date picker to select a date. Manually entering dates causes an error to occur.

  3. Select the option button for the frequency of the repeating task or appointment. Options include none, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly.

    1. Select None and the task does not repeat.

    2. Select Daily and enter the number of days you want the task to repeat.

    3. Select Weekly and enter the number of weeks and select the check box for each day you want it to occur.

    4. Select Monthly and enter the number of months and select the check box for each day you want it to occur.

    5. Select Yearly and enter the number of years and the day or the particular day of the month you want the task to occur.

  4. Click Update to save your repeating task or appointment. A confirmation window opens confirming the repeating task was created. You can update the repeating rule by changing the frequency of a repeating series if you want. Click the Update again to confirm the changes.

  5. Click Restore to reset the original values in the window.

Mass Creating Tasks

Use the Mass Create window to create a separate task for each selected resources. When you use the Mass Create feature, a new task is created for each resource in a group or team and that resource is automatically assigned as the owner of the task. Also, once the task is created, the creator of the mass created task may not perform any updates to the new task.

Note: Click the source number link to view the source or the name link to view the details of the record.

In the Mass Create window, select the resource type (group or team) from the drop-down list and choose a corresponding value from the LOV. Tip text provides information about the distinction between the group and team concepts for marketing applications.

Select the Keep Record check box to copy the task to a group or team member even if one already exist for the owner.

Select the Copy Notes check box to create a copy of any note attached to the task.

A task for each member of the group or team is assigned and each individual becomes the owner of their task.

Adding an Attachment

Use the Attachment feature to link unstructured data such as images, word-processing documents, spreadsheets, or text to their application data. For example, you can link images to items or video to operation instructions. Task Manager supports the ability to add one or more attachments to a task. The attachment can be in the form of a text message, a file, or a URL.

See Using Attachments, Oracle Applications User's Guide for Adding an Attachment.

Viewing Your Task Bin

If you are using Task Manager integrated with another application within Oracle E-Business Suite, use the task bin as a quick look at your daily tasks, including the task name and end date. If no end date is specified during task creation, "No Date" appears in the date field. The task bin only shows tasks for which the logged in user is the owner or assignee and does not display appointments.

Note: When you switch to another calendar that you are subscribed to, your calendar and task bins still reflect your personal appointments and tasks.

Editing Your Task Bin

In the task bin, tasks are sorted in the order of the calendar end date and priority. The task bin can be customized to select tasks based on different task statuses and priorities, as well as the update status. Perform the following steps to modify which tasks you want to appear in your task bin.

Steps

  1. Navigate to the Parameters window by clicking Edit in your Task bin.

  2. In the Parameters window, use the Show Task Ending drop-down list to select which tasks you want to appear in the task bin. Options include tasks ending:

  3. In the Priority multi-select box, select which task priorities you want to appear in the task bin. You can select as many priorities as you want by holding down the [Ctrl] key and selecting each priority with your mouse.

  4. In the Status multi-select box, select which task statuses you want to appear in the task bin. You can select as many statuses as you want by holding down the [Ctrl] key and selecting each priority with your mouse.

  5. Select whether or not you want to show updated tasks in your task bin.

  6. Click Update once you've selected all your parameters.

    Your Homepage appears showing additional tasks which correspond to the task attributes you selected in the Parameters window.

Reassigning Tasks

Tasks can be mass reassigned to new owners or assignees by using the Task Reassignment window. These new resources can be of any types that are defined in Resource Manager. For example, you can reassign a task from an employee resource to a supplier contact, party, partner, other, to be hired, resource group or team when the original resource was end dated (became inactive) or due to other business reasons. For example, due to the change of a person's role, as a result, the person is not suitable for the assigned task.

Please note that the Reassign button used to launch the Task Reassignment window is located in the Resource Details window, instead of in the Tasks screen. This is because the nature of task reassignment is to change resources for assigned tasks. Therefore, to reassign a task, users need to have the Resource Self Service Administrator responsibility to be able to access the HTML Resource Manager administrator page. In addition, the profile option Task Manager: Mass Task Reassign Access also needs to be set to Yes so that the Reassign button is shown in the resource window.

Alternatively, users with the CRM Application Foundation User responsibility can also access the reassign screen, but need to set the value of the profile option JTFRS: Employee Resource Update Access to Any at the user level. This way, users can reassign tasks even if the profile option Task Manager: Mass Task Reassign Access is set to No.

After you log in to Resource Manager with the appropriate responsibility, the first thing is to locate the resource that you want to change in the resource screen. This means the original resource must only be an employee resource or a group resource in this release. After locating the resource, then you can launch the Task Reassignment window by clicking Reassign.

During task reassignment process, make sure to identify both of the following items before you commit the change.

After you reassign tasks, workflow notifications should be sent to the old assignee, new assignee, and the task owner if the reassignment is for the task's assignee. If it is an owner reassignment, the notifications should be sent to the old owner and new owner.

Be aware that task reassignment will not change the task status. In other words, the status will still be the same as it was before reassignment.

Note: Only open tasks can be reassigned. Tasks shown on the Task Reassignment window should not have a status of closed, canceled, rejected, or completed.

Defining Your Task Preferences

Task Manager shares some preference options with the HTML Calendar. Use the following links to view information regarding Task Preferences.

Setting User Preferences

You can receive either e-mail notifications or workflow notifications, but not both. If you want to receive notifications in your worklist, you must set your Personal Home Page Preferences.

Select Do Not Send Me Mail in the Send me Electronic Mail drop-down list and click Apply.

Viewing Notifications in Your Worklist

When a task is created, you can be notified by a workflow notification if it is set up properly. For detailed information about responding to workflow notifications, see Oracle Workflow User's Guide.

Responsibility: Workflow User Web Applications

Steps

  1. Select Worklist hyperlink from the Workflow User Web Applications column.

  2. The Worklist window opens with workflow notifications displayed.

  3. Click on the notification in the Subject column that you want to view.

  4. View your selected notification in the Notification Details window.

  5. Respond to the notification by selecting an appropriate button in the bottom of the page.

Defining Task Contacts

Use the Task Contacts window to manage employee and customer contact information. To be able to enter customer contact information, you must have customer information specified when creating a task.

When searching for a customer's contact, you can search either by contact's first name or last name. After a search, you can see the matched contact names displayed with specified text either by last or first name. Any inactive resources will not be displayed in the resource list of values.

In addition, when you manually update or add any resources (employee or customer contacts) with a resource of category party in the Forms-based or HTML Tasks, additional party references are also created and visible in the Tasks. If the resource type is Person (such as Jeff Walsh), then two associated party references will be created for every contact:

However, if it adds any duplicate references in Tasks, then an error message will appear stating that the reference already exists.

When you update a contact with a different contact name, existing task references for the old contact are removed and new references are created.

Task Manager allows you to manually delete existing references that are shared by one or more attributes without problems. For example, if you delete a customer contact name "Jeff Walsh" for Vision Corporation, then system will automatically delete the contact "Jeff Walsh" as well as the relationship information "Jeff at Vision Corporation", but it will leave the organization "Vision Corporation" unchanged in the system.

Select the Primary option button if the resource is the primary contact.

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