This chapter covers the following topics:
Task Manager provides an effective mechanism for organizations to create tasks, assign resources to tasks, schedule tasks, and manage tasks, as well as to track task assignments.
Depending on your business needs, Task Manager can be used as a standalone module to create personal tasks and private to dos, or it can be integrated with other applications in the Oracle E-Business Suite to create context sensitive tasks, such as tasks created for a sales opportunity. No matter how Task Manager is used, the implementation steps for Tasks would be the same.
Task Manager for Oracle Common Application Calendar adopts the Oracle Applications Framework, the standard HTML development and deployment platform for Oracle HTML Applications. It provides essential task screens including creating tasks, updating tasks, and viewing contextual tasks for integrated applications such as Oracle Service or Oracle Sales.
A number of features are available in both versions; however, some features are available in only Forms, or only HTML based Tasks.
Task Manager in Oracle Applications Framework provides basic task functionality in accordance with Task data security rules. These task features can only be accessed through integrated applications and they are not available in the standalone Task Manager. These features include creating tasks, updating tasks, and viewing tasks which are also available in the Forms-based, or HTML Tasks. Task Manager in Oracle Applications Framework is not fully compatible with HTML Tasks user interface.
To implement Task Manager, the implementor or system administrator need to set up basic task components, such as task types, priorities, statuses, reference mapping, date types, profile options, concurrent programs, and metadata objects if necessary. If task templates or task template groups will be used later in the application, then the implementor can create them first so that users can have an option to create multiple tasks simultaneously. In addition, Task Manager allows implementors or system administrators to further customize the task security rules so that appropriate users can be authorized with right access privileges to particular tasks.
To be able to use the full functionality of Task Manager, the following components must be set up properly:
Trading Community Architecture (TCA). Use TCA to locate the customer contact information when creating a task against a customer.
Oracle Workflow. Use Oracle Workflow to send workflow notifications in order to notify personnel about task creation and changes.
Notes. Use Notes to add additional information attached to a task.
Resource Manager. Use Resource Manager to locate resources (task owner and assignee) for a task.
Calendar. Use Calendar to define personal preferences for tasks including task category and other calendar preferences.
Escalation Manager. Use Escalation Manager to escalate a task created in the Forms-based Task Manager.
Assignment Manager. Use Assignment Manager to assist in locating the qualified resources (task owner and assignee) for a task created in the Forms-based Task Manager.