Discovered that Team Requests are not always generated for the team assigned...

[KatherineHa1]

We wanted to make sure anyone using Teams to assign work in WF, is aware of an issue we discovered today regarding assigning work to Teams (which is used extensively in our network). We discovered that for about half of the tasks assigned to a team in our instance, the team fails to receive a work request (and therefore no notification is sent) which results in no one accepting the work to move to their My Work list. This occurs when the task/issue is assigned to both a Team as well as to a person/job role (who then becomes the task owner). When there is a task owner for a task - no team request is created, however the work shows as unassigned in the Working On Calendar (WOC) - which is inconsistent behavior in our view. We logged a ticket with the Helpdesk and initial response was that this is ‘working as designed’ so they closed the ticket, which is not acceptable in our opinion. (Later, Product tested and agreed no notification was created so they instructed us to log another ticket.) Below is a summary of the test we performed to confirm this inconsistent behavior between the WOC and the Team Request list. Created a project with 5 tasks (we named the tasks to describe how they are assigned): Just Team Team and a job role (so WF considers this unassigned and there is no task owner) Team and an active but unlicensed user Team and a licensed user who is not a member of the team assigned Team and a licensed user who is a member of the team assigned Expected Results: Team Requests were created for tasks 1 and 2. Tasks 1 and 2 also show up as unassigned work on the WOC. Task 5 did not produce a team request and the WOC shows it as assigned to said user. No problems here. Unexpected Results: Task 3 and 4 did NOT create a team request (because WFront assumes there is a Task Owner). However, the two tasks do show up as unassigned in the WOC. This seems inconsistent - anything that’s considered unassigned on the WOC should also generate a team request. The fix we need: Any task or issue that shows up in the unassigned area on the Working On calendar needs to have a team request created as well. Many of our teams do not use the WOC, but rely on the Team Request list (and the notifications/emails that result from this). This could result in work not getting done which is not a desired result from anyone's perspective! As a work around until this is resolved, we created reports for each team to see all outstanding tasks/issues assigned to them, and notified our agencies that the Work Request functionality for teams cannot be trusted at this time.

[LindsayJe]

Kathy, Thank you for using the community site! Id like to respond with products explination of how this feature currently works. Yes there have been talks of changing or adjusting the functionality so feedback on this topic is encouraged. Please keep in mind that the TEAM working on calendar (WOC) ONLY shows members of THAT TEAM - this is important Second a user notification will trump a team notification Situation: 1) Task assigned to Just the team - a) This will generate a team request because an item has been assigned to the team and NO user is assigned. b) The item will be in the request tab because no user (ANY USER) is assigned. c) The item will show up in the WOC in the UNASSIGNED area because there is not a member of THE TEAM assigned d) As soon as a user is assigned it is no longer in the requests list e) If the user assigned is on the team it will no longer show up in the unassigned area. 2) The team and a role - same as number 1 a) This will generate a team request because an item has been assigned to the team and NO user is assigned. b) The item will be in the request tab because no user (ANY USER) is assigned. c) The item will show up in the WOC in the UNASSIGNED area because there is not a member of THE TEAM assigned d) As soon as a user is assigned it is no longer in the requests list e) If the user assigned is on the team it will no longer show up in the unassigned area. 3) Team and active unlicensed user (that is on the team)- a) This will NOT generate a team request because the item IS assigned to a user when created and the user notification trumps the team notification b) The item will NOT be in the request tab because a user (ANY USER) is assigned. c) The item will show up in the WOC in the UNASSIGNED area because the user is not a member of THE TEAM assigned and WOC ONLY SHOWS MEBERS OF THAT TEAM. d) Because a user was assigned when it was created it will never be in the requests list 4) Team and a licensed user NOT ON the team a) This will NOT generate a team request because the item IS assigned to a user and the user notification trumps the team notification b) The item will NOT be in the request tab because a user (ANY USER) is assigned. c) The item will show up in the WOC in the UNASSIGNED area because the user is NOT a member of THE TEAM assigned. d) Because a user was assigned when it was created it will never be in the requests list 5) Team and a licensed user ON the team a) This will NOT generate a team request because the item IS assigned to a user and the user notification trumps the team notification b) The item will NOT be in the request tab because a user (ANY USER) is assigned. c) The item will show up in the WOC in the ASSIGNED area because the user is a member of THE TEAM assigned. d) Because a user was assigned when it was created it will never be in the requests list As I see it the main issue here is that a notification is not being sent to the team when a user is assigned whether they are on the team or not. Secondarily you would like it to remain in the Requests tab until a member of the team is assigned. It seems to make sense that when the user is on the team but not when the user is not on the team. Would love feedback and thoughts from everyone. I hope this helps at least explain why it works this way.

[AnthonyIm]

Thank you Lindsay for your reply. The simple issue is that a team member cannot pick up and work on a task/issue assigned to the team is there is someone else on that item. This has been a huge issue for the Print Studio in Hacker as only 4 requests came to the team but they have 54 unassigned tasks they need to work on. Example: The account person and the Proofreaders team are on a task. The Proofreaders are not notified and no one on the Proofreader team can pick up the work so it never gets done. All because the account person is also on the task. We do see that the Working On calendar is correct and this will work for teams with less items assigned to them. However, as you all now, for busier teams the calendar takes a while to load. We are trying some different reports and dashboards to workaround this, but even for those, there is no way to have a list of unassigned team tasks/issues like you see in the Working On Calendar.

[KatherineHa1]

I'm sorry, but this logic is confusing to me. In 3C, you say " The item will show up in the WOC in the UNASSIGNED area because the user is not a member of THE TEAM assigned and WOC ONLY SHOWS MEBERS OF THAT TEAM ." then in 4C, you contradict by saying "c) The item will show up in the WOC in the UNASSIGNED area because the user is NOT a member of THE TEAM assigned .". In 4C, why is the item showing in WOC if the user isn't a member of the team? when in #3C you say WOC only shows members of that team?

[SpencerEl]

Hi Guys, I"m glad we are having the conversation and that you are providing feedback on ways to make our product better. The best way to get some traction on this type of thing is to communicate it through the proper channels. There is a ticket submitted in HUB and all conversations related to this issue should happen there. We want to keep all of the conversations in one location (HUB) so that we have a complete record as our product team evaluates the situation. Our product team does not monitor conversation happening in the community forum. Thanks, Spencer

[AnthonyIm]

Hey Spencer - trust me, there are plenty of HUB tickets about this. So we are good there. Other IPG agencies - Now the Working On Calendar is correct with unassigned work. So if your teams can use that, you should be fine. Someone will need to monitor it regularly as notifications are not sent to the team members. If you have a team though with a lot of items, the loading of the Working On Calendar can be really slow or sometimes time out before all items show. (We have a few times like that here at FCB). There are two things you can do: 1 - Create a task report and an issue report that using the filter TEAM ID = [Team Name]. Since you can only have one team on a task or issue, you will see everything assigned to that team. I'm currently working with the Help Desk on how to filter unassigned items but we haven't figured that out yet. 2 - You can create an assignment report using the Team ID filter. However, please note that the Assigned To field is always empty on a Team's assignment even if someone from the team picks it up. Also, assignment reports are not editable. FCB went if Option 1 as our teams wanted to be able to inline or bulk edit. Hope this is helpful.

[AnthonyIm]

Just in case anyone runs into this while looking through our thread. This issue has been fixed! :) Team members are getting the notifications they need to get!