Task Approval workflow- Approver visibility to upcoming Approvals

[TinaHu1]

Hi Everyone, We started utilizing Task Approval workflows for a few tasks 2-3 months ago. It was a slow ramp up as PMs began creating new projects using updated templates with the workflows built in. We've received feedback from Approvers that they don't have visibility into upcoming Approvals they will be assigned to. The know only once the task is marked Complete and the Approval is triggered. One challenge is that we decided not to use the buffer feature because it was forcing Task Planned End Date to be end-of-day (afternoon) central time. We have many tasks assigned to Offshore team members so the dates would look like next day to them causing missed deadlines. (Offshore is 11.5 hrs ahead). Any suggestions on how to provide advanced notice/visibility in this scenario without making PMs, Offshore, or Appvoers have to manually keep track or calculate things. Hopefully this makes sense, thanks in advance! Tina Tina Huang Optum

[SamanthaWi1]

What if you put your off shore people on a different schedule in your set up and designated their time zone differently from CST. I am curious if this would help at least one part of your issue. Samantha Senior Specialist, Creative Services 817-424-2186

[SkyeHa]

Tina, sounds like they want some sort of report to show what's coming to them, so maybe make them a task report filtering for tasks in active projects, that are not complete or pending completion, and have the "Approval Processes ID" = whatever approval process you created for them. Sort it by Task planned completion date if that's how your team plays. -skye

[TinaHu1]

Hi Samantha! I actually missed including the detail that our Offshore team members do have a specific schedule in their profiles. The Approval workflow works when no buffer - task end date time is within the offshore work schedule. it's when we use the buffer feature that task end date time is forced to be central time EOD 5pm (and so looks like next day offshore time). Tina Huang Optum

[TinaHu1]

Hi Skye, Thanks for the idea! We will try it out. One challenge may be having people to go to/click to several different spots for information. Do you have that problem in your organization? Tina Huang Optum

[SkyeHa]

hi Tina, We don't tend to have that problem with our users, as everyone is familiar with how our system works (or able to pick it up after a few repetitions) and we're very clear about where they need to go for information, and what options they have for getting there. To help you more, can you describe where they go to in order to get the information that they need. For example, if people need some information that is only available by looking in the project's details tab, I try to give them options, and I display those details in the report. However, if there's a specific file they need to look at, they usually have to go and look for the file (however, we can report on whether or not there's a file there to be looked at). So as you can see, it really depends on what they feel they need to look at. I was thinking that an "upcoming task approval" type of report wouldn't require much information other than "there's an approval needed on a task that is scheduled to be completed on 2/28" but if your users have other needs we can certainly look to see if there's any way to fulfill them using a report. -skye

[TinaHu1]

Hi Skye, We are actually in the process of re-examining what type of information each group needs and hopefully design new layouts that help them access the information more easily. So we have more work to do on that front. But for the specific Approvals piece I'll try out your suggestion of creating an Upcoming Task Approval report and perhaps add it to an existing dashboard. For your example of putting Project Details in a report, or reporting on whether or not there is a file... do you then have reports for each and put them in a dashboard & include in your layout? Or are they custom reports that your users go to Reporting to access? Thanks! Tina Huang Optum

[SkyeHa]

hi Tina, Personally I would put them all on the same report. I'm not really clear on why they would be better as separate reports, so I might need more clarification from you on what's needed there. The task report should be able to incorporate project details. (And in terms of whereabouts of documents, this would be a collection you would reference... I'm not 100% sure if you can reference project documents on a task report, but if not, you might be able to reference task documents instead, in which case, those documents always need to be uploaded to that task instead of to the project) So your basic task report could be a list of rows each with a set of project data (like form number, division, name of project), and due date on task... this way the task approvers can at least have something to check on a regular basis and plan on what's coming up. -skye

[TinaHu1]

Hi Skye, Sorry my question was more around what you do for your teams - when you refer to Project Details and Documents I thought you were talking about actual reports you have for you team. So it's not for a need that we have currently. Please disregard! Thanks again for the suggestion of creating a report, looking forward to trying it out! Tina Tina Huang Optum