Tasks

A task is a unit of work that is usually assigned to some participant in a step, and is part of a larger process.

Tasks are assigned to various participants involved in a process. When tasks are getting completed by participants, the process moves forward automatically. Tasks have to be created and stored in the library in order for the Onboarding (Transitions) administrator to configure them into steps which then get assigned to participants in the right sequence to form a coherent process for each new hire.

Note: Be sure to read the following sections also regarding external services and OVI partner invitation tasks: External Services and Multiple Participants, External Service Request Tasks and Results in the Onboarding (Transitions) Center and OVI Partner Invitation Task.

Task Action

Each task must contain a task action and a related source (except manual tasks and content tasks). Related sources tell the system what source material, such as a form or message, to access to complete the task. When you create a task, you specify the action to be performed and the related source for the action.

Type of Action	Description	Related Source
Send Correspondence	An email message is sent to the task assignee(s) and also to any additional recipients that the Onboarding (Transitions) administrator added at the task level or in the message template.	The list of message templates. Typical assignees consist of anyone on the To, CC, BCC lines in the Message Template, along with anyone to whom this task will be assigned when it is included in a process. Additional recipients can only be specific free-form email addresses, not variables that represent roles. An example of an additional recipient would be a mentor. For information about correspondence tasks specific to mentors, see Mentors for New Hires.
Fill user-defined form	Assignees are asked to read and complete a user-defined form.	The list of user-defined forms.
Execute the task manually	A manual task does not require any support i.e. no form, PDF, correspondence, etc. This is a task with only the cancel or completion option. With manual tasks, the Onboarding (Transitions) administrator can simply ask an assignee to perform a task and the Onboarding (Transitions) Center user will receive an acknowledgment of completion (tracking). Details regarding the task are contained in the task description field. An example of a manual task could be to instruct the assignee to do an action outside the system, such as make a welcoming phone call to the candidate.	Not applicable.
Open PDF	A PDF file, that can contain specific variables, gets assigned here by the Onboarding (Transitions) administrator to the assignee as a task. The assignee can complete the task simply by opening the PDF. After it is assigned to any participant, Onboarding (Transitions) Center users can access it in the Onboarding (Transitions) Center, on the Process Page for that candidate/new hire. It can also be exported via Taleo Connect.	The Onboarding (Transitions) administrator is presented with a list of PDF documents and can only select one.
System Task	Though this type of task is still displayed in the Action list, it's use is confined to some earlier versions of Taleo Onboarding (Transitions). It serves no purpose in 14A or later versions of Taleo Onboarding (Transitions).	Not applicable.
Request External Service	A third party is the approved vendor for a specific service or product, such as the U.S. I-9 form completion or help with tax form completion. When this type of task is part of the process, it makes a request to a third-party provider to perform the type of service configured here.	The Onboarding (Transitions) administrator is presented with new fields relevant to the service. The Onboarding (Transitions) administrator chooses among any enabled external service providers and then he/she can configure any of the Input Fields that are requested or required by that selected partner.
Display Content Page	A content page is text, graphics, links, lists of PDFs or other rich media and formatting, whose purpose is to communicate information to the candidate/employee assignee.	The Onboarding (Transitions) administrator is presented with a list of content pages and can only select one.
Send E-Offer Response	When a candidate or employee accepts or refuses an advanced E-Offer by submitting a form configured for this purpose, the Offer status is updated automatically to Offer-Accepted or Offer-Refused. If a cover page is selected in the Cover page to display in the offer letter PDF field, when a candidate or employee accepts or refuses an advanced E-Offer, an offer letter and cover page PDF is generated automatically also. The PDF can be included in a Display Content Page task or an Open PDF task such that the PDF will be available to candidates and employees. The PDF will also be available to Onboarding (Transitions) Center and Recruiting Center users.	Not applicable.
Mark as ready to be exported	When candidates or employees reach this task in a process, the task's status changes to Completed and the system marks the candidates or employees as ready to be exported. Afterward, external systems can send export requests to the export service to pull all or a subset of candidates or employees marked as ready to be exported.	Not applicable.

Task Type

When creating a task, the Type drop-down list allows you to classify the nature of the task you are creating. This classification will help others identify the nature of the specific task in Onboarding (Transitions).

Task Priority

Priority is useful for indicating the relative urgency with which a task should be executed: Low, Normal or High. Note that Priority is simply a helpful indicator; it has no direct effect on the system's behavior. It does not control any due dates (driven by the Duration field), affect the timing of task assignments (driven by the links and conditions) or have any effect on any sequence on candidates' Tasks tab (driven by sequence).

Notifications

You may designate that special correspondence, called notifications, be sent to the assignee or owner of the task. There are two notifications:

Task Assignment Correspondence: A message is sent to the assignee informing him/her that a task has been assigned. Often, the Onboarding (Transitions) administrator can choose the same standard message each time a task gets assigned. However, sometimes a process is configured to assign several tasks at the same time to the same assignee(s). In this case, it is likely overwhelming to send the same email for each. Instead, the Onboarding (Transitions) administrator can choose to remove these notifications from every parallel task. The Onboarding (Transitions) administrator can use a modified message template which describes all of the simultaneous tasks that the assignee will find when clicking the link to visit their task list. Another best practice is to use the notification for the first assigned task as the overall kick-off for the process, introducing the candidate/new hire to the whole concept of the Career Section as the home for their newly-launched process. Sometimes the Onboarding (Transitions) administrator might choose to communicate this information in a correspondence task before any actionable tasks get assigned to the candidate/new hire. But this is not always necessary, if the first task's notification can deliver the same introductory information, thus the process configuration might be simplified in this way.
Task Completion Correspondence: Once the task is completed, a message is sent to the process owner or supervisor.

Reminders

You may also designate that reminders be sent to the task assignee or the task owner a specified number of days before or after the task due date.

Functional Roles and Tasks

To ensure that anyone from a specific group of people can move a process forward as necessary, Onboarding (Transitions) processes can be configured by the Onboarding (Transitions) administrator such that their respective supervisors are functional roles.

Sometimes it is necessary or desirable to designate a specific person per Organization, Location or Job Field (OLF) to oversee a process; to ensure all of its tasks move forward and prevent bottlenecks from occurring. In these situations, the Onboarding (Transitions) administrator can configure a functional role as the process owner. The system then assigns to each running process the best process owner—the single person in the functional role who is the best-match for the OLF of the requisition associated with the process.

In other business situations it is necessary or desirable to share the responsibility of overseeing a process. In these situations, configuring the functional role as the process owner is not recommended because only the person in the functional role who is the best-match for the OLF of the requisition associated with the process will be selected. Rather, the functional role(s) should be configured as the process's supervisors. Because a process can have multiple supervisors, all of people in the functional role(s) assigned as supervisors and who match the process requisition's OLF will share responsibility for the process.

See also: the "Functional Role as Process Owner" and "Functional Role Assignment" headings in Process Owner.

Creating a Task

Configuration > [Onboarding (Transitions)] Administration > Task Definitions

Click Create.
Enter a code, name and description for the task.

The description is visible only to the Onboarding (Transitions) administrator who can determine what is the intention/behavior of the task when viewing, for example, the process that it has been used in, or to decide whether to incorporate it into future processes.
Enter guidelines as required.

Guidelines are displayed to assignees when the task is assigned to them. Guidelines appear as a tooltip when assignees pause the mouse over the task name in the career section Tasks tab.
Select a type of task.

The type of task is a list of values that can be used for any purpose relevant to your business needs, although there is no significance in the Onboarding (Transitions) product that results form choosing any value selected in this field.
Select a priority for the task.

Priority is an evaluation of the urgency with which a task should be executed. The value selected has no concrete effect on the behavior of the Onboarding (Transitions) product.
Select the action the task will perform and, from the list of sources, the related source.
Click Save.

After completion, you can configure a notification and/or a reminder if desired.