Task Manager Overview

Task Manager helps you define, execute, monitor, and report the interdependent activities of a business process. It provides centralized monitoring of all tasks and provides a visible, automated, repeatable system of record for running a business process. A task represents the unit of action performed in the application. Administrators or Power Users can define integrated task flows with interdependent relationships and hierarchies within their business processes. They can track progress, identify bottlenecks, and correct any errors or delays that may arise throughout the business process.

With an EPM Enterprise subscription, the service is preloaded with integrated end user and process automation tasks for use within the business process. Administrators can add additional integrated tasks with other business processes by making connections with other Oracle Fusion Cloud EPM services. The service can be further extended to include integrations with Non-Cloud EPM applications. EPM Standard subscription do not include any local integrated tasks and can not be extended to include any other integrated tasks.

With Task Manager, you can:

Define the tasks and schedule to ensure an efficient task flow
Automate the business process, track its status, and provide notifications and alerts
Monitor a business process and quickly act on possible errors to avoid delays.
Provide notifications by email for delinquencies, due dates, and status changes.
Analyze the effectiveness of the business process

How Task Manager Works

Task Manager provides a framework where the following key components for a business process can be defined:

Organizational units are used to model regions, entities, business units, divisions, and other organizational or geographical divisions that are associated with the task. Model these organization units as hierarchies to create the actual structure and facilitate reporting.
Holiday rules is a collection of holiday dates and is used by scheduling the task.
Task types are set up by the administrator to ensure consistency across tasks and to leverage predefined product integrations. If the predefined task types doesn’t meet the requirement, then they can create a task type. The task types can be either automated or manual with a defined assignee.
Task templates are created to use a repeatable set of tasks across multiple periods. These schedules represent the chronological sequence of tasks created by selecting a template and assigning calendar dates.
Tasks can be assigned to a user, a team or a group.

The business process starts when the schedule status is changed from Pending to Open. During the business process, user receives email notifications of assigned tasks, and can click links in the email for direct access to the assigned task. Administrators have to enable the email notifications to allow this to happen. Users can also create alerts for issues that may occur, and these are forwarded to assignees and approvers for the resolution.

Roles in Task Manager

Task Manager includes three key roles:

Service Administrator or Power User: Sets up templates and tasks for the business process and monitors the status of dashboard activities.
End User: Reviews and completes assigned tasks. They can view the list of assigned tasks in the application or from the assigned task email.
Approver: Reviews tasks and determines if the tasks can be approved or not.

For sample task flows, see Sample Task Flows.

Service Administrator or Power User tasks:

Set up users. See Managing Users and Roles in Getting Started Guide for Administrators.
Completes the required setup procedures:
- Set up organizational units. See Managing Task Manager Organizational Units.
- Set up global integration tokens. See Managing Global Integration Tokens.
- Set up holiday rules. See Managing Holiday Rules for Tasks.
- Set up attachment size and other system settings. See Setting Task Manager Governors.
- Enable email notifications. See Setting Up Email for Notifications in Working with Tax Reporting.
Review the tasks required for a business process and set up Task Types to ensure consistency across tasks and leverage predefined product integrations. See Managing Task Types.
Define and save a set of tasks as a template to use for future periods because many business processes are repetitive. See Managing Task Templates.
For example, an administrator can set up a monthly or quarterly business process once and then use it repeatedly for all months or quarters. Tasks are defined with task predecessors, Assignees, and Approvers.
Generate a schedule (a chronological set of tasks) by selecting a template and assigning calendar dates to initiate a business process. The generic tasks in the template are applied to calendar dates. See Managing Schedules.
Change the schedule status from Pending to Open to begin a business process.
Modify and monitor the schedule as needed.

End Users and Approver Tasks:

After the administrator changes the schedule status (Open) to begin a business process, users can read task instructions, answer questions, submit, reassign, approve, and reject tasks, and access tasks from email notifications or by logging on to the application.

During the business process, users can:

Receive email notifications of assigned tasks and click links in the email for direct access to assigned tasks.
Alternatively, log on to review and access assigned tasks in different types of views.
Complete tasks and the tasks are sent to approvers and can be viewed by other users.
Create alerts for issues, such as hardware or software issues, that they encounter. Alerts are forwarded to Assignees and Approvers for resolution.

Watch this overview video to learn more.

Overview Video

UI Navigation for Task Manager

Service Administrator or Power users access Task Manager from Applications > Task Manager.
Users access Task Manager from Home > Tasks. They can access Dashboards from the Home > Operations to monitor their task executions. Additonal reporting can be accessed from the Application > Supplemental/Task Reports.