Work Distribution

This topic goes overs the various possible actions a user can take to adjust what role or what user is associated with a To Do entry while it is in a non-complete state.

Adjusting the Role

A To Do entry must always reference a role. When a To Do entry are created in the Open state and is associated with a role. The following points highlight ways to adjust the role associated with a To Do entry.

  • A user viewing a record on the To Do Entry page may use the Forward or Send Back action to change the role.

  • A supervisor using the To Do Search page may assign a user not linked to the current role. In this case, the system will update the role to one valid for the assignee.

Assigning a To Do to a User

There are several ways to Assign a To Do entry to a user:

  • The To Do Management portal provides many filters and viewing options to review To Do entries for a give To Do Type. In addition, it displays a rich amount of detail for the resulting To Do entries, helping users to make decisions. Users may use this page to assign work to themselves and supervisors may use this to assign work to others.

  • A supervisor can use the Supervisor Functions pages to review, assign and reassign To Dos to users.

  • A user viewing an entry on the To Do Entry page may use the Forward to a User or the Send Back action to assign the entry to a different user.

  • A user may use the To Do list pages to review and assign To Dos to themselves.

  • All of the above assignment functions may also be performed using the To Do Search page.

The system can also be configured to dynamically assign the highest priority work to users on demand whenever they are available for fixing errors.

Note: Assignment on demand is in a plug-in. You can customize the next assignment plug-in on the installation options to follow your organization's work distribution rules. The product provides an algorithm out of the box (F1-NEXT-TDNS) that can assign work solely based on priority. Another algorithm (F1-NEXT-TDSK) may be used to only consider To Do entries the user has the proper skills to resolve. Your implementation may provide a different algorithm based on your own business rules.

One of the main benefits of the assignment on demand approach is that work is allocated real-time based on most current information such as skills, priority, user availability, etc. This also means that work remains unassigned until a user is actually going to work on it making it available to any qualified user.

Assignment "on demand" is possible from the Current To Do zone on the sidebar. Refer to this zone to learn about all the functions it provides.

Reopening / Unassigning a To Do

It is possible to transition a To Do entry from Assigned back to Open.

  • A user viewing a record assigned to them on the To Do Entry page may use the Forward to a role action to move the entry back to Open.

  • The Unassign button on the To Do Management portal or the Reopen button on the To Do Search page causes the To Do entry to go back to Open.