Worklist

The worklist is a specialized dashboard that organises the tasks of all business processes, allowing easy and flexible task management. Here, all tasks can be observed. A task may have been assigned to you directly, to your position within the organisation, to your organisation unit, or even to a specific group of users that you’re a part of. For instance, approving an expense form is a task for the department manager position whether resolving a technical problem is a task for the service desk unit.

Task management.

Each task visible in the task list displays a set of essential information (i.e. task summary).

Leftmost is the profile picture (or placeholder) of the user that initiated the business process to which the task belongs. Note that some processes are automatically initiated by Emakin, thus, this field may be empty for the associated tasks.

Next, there is a task name and an optional brief description of that task.

A task’s origin is distinguished by an automated tag. These tags show up in coloured rectangles (e.g. internal processes as System, or business processes from folders such as Leave Request or Expense Management). Additional tags may also be present, as defined individually by each business process.

On the right hand side, there is the profile display name of the user to whom the task is currently assigned. A task may be available to several users at the same time (i.e. functional position, organisation unit, or user group) while remaining unassigned. In this case, the task status is simply displayed as “Waiting”. Upon task completion by the current user, this field will again display the task status (i.e. Completed).

Each time a business process is executed, a unique instance number is assigned to allow easier tracking (#nnn). All tasks originated from the same business process instance are correlated using the same tracking number.

Below are displayed two date fields. First one shows the date when the task is created and assigned, or started. The second date shows the task deadline, if applicable, or the task completion date, when available. Note that if you hover the mouse pointer on these fields a tooltip will display the detailed date and time.

Worklist toolbar

Powerful search and filtering mechanisms are the great enablers behind the worklist. You interact with them through the worklist toolbar. Additionally, it also provides access to sorting and exporting facilities.

Worklist toolbar.

The search box allows you to write free-text terms that will be matched against all tasks information (not only the visible task fields) to narrow down the list of displayed tasks.

When clicking the search box, a few predefined search options are displayed (e.g. Assigned to Me). These provide quick access to useful and frequently used searches.

To the right of the search box you can choose the task field (e.g. Started At) used to sort the displayed list of tasks, and the sorting order as well (ascending or descending).

Next, a structured filtering functionality is at your disposal when you want precise control to further narrow down the search results. You can add as many filters as needed. Each filter matches a specific task field with a user selected term. In this case Emakin guides the user by presenting only valid options for each task field (e.g. Assigned To field and a list of existing Emakin users). Every time a filter is added, updated, or removed the task list is filtered automatically.

Rightmost of the search box is a button that allows you to export the current list of tasks in tabular form, by downloading a file in Microsoft Excel format (.xlxs). The tasks information present in the exported file is more detailed than the task summary displayed in the task list.

Task groups

Below the search box there’s another functionality designed to help the user with task management: task groups. You can think of it as a kind of predefined filters, presented as tabs on top of the task list, each restricting the visible tasks on the list according to predefined criteria.

Leftmost, in red, there’s the Red task group, listing the incomplete tasks for which the specified deadline has passed and the tasks have not yet been completed, thus overdue. These tasks are also visible in the Inbox task group.

Next, in orange, there’s the Orange task group, listing the incomplete tasks for which a deadline has been set, plus those for which at least one reminder has been sent, and also the high priority tasks. These tasks are also visible in the Inbox task group.

Note that the Red and Orange task groups are dynamically created and only visible if the task list contains tasks that meet these groups' criteria. The other task groups are always visible and display between parentheses the number of tasks present inside, eventually zero (0).

The Inbox task group lists all incomplete tasks that are available to you, including the ones from the Red and Orange task groups. Remember that they may have been assigned to you directly, to your position within the organisation, to your organisation unit, or even to a specific group of users that you’re part of.

The Outbox task group lists the tasks that you completed, but for which the associated business process has not yet finished.

The tasks from all previously described groups (i.e. Red, Orange, Inbox, and Outbox) are consolidated in another task group aptly named All. Note that these are not duplicates, just an overall view of the tasks (incomplete and complete) pertaining to ongoing business processes, and quite useful in some situations.

Finally, the Archive group lists all past tasks belonging to finished business processes.