Standard Task With Timeout (External Forms) activity

An activity that lets you limit the time for a human task. The activity is much like the Standard Task activity, but with a feature that lets the process to move to another activity if the task is not completed within a specified time.

This activity is often used for time-based escalations. For example, if a Tier 1 Customer Support representative does not answer a support query within a specified time, the query is escalated to Tier 2 Customer Support.


Standard Task With Timeout activity

Configure the Standard Task With Timeout (External Forms) activity

To configure the Standard Task With Timeout (External Forms) activity, do the procedure in this topic.

Good to Know

How to Start

  1. Open Process Builder.

    For information about how to open this screen, refer to Process Builder.


    Open Process Builder
  2. In Process Builder, in the Activity Library, open the External Forms tab.

    Open External Forms tab
  3. On the External Forms tab, drag the Standard Task With Timeout activity onto your process.

    Drag Standard Task With Timeout activity

Procedure

  1. Complete the fields on the General Configuration screen.
  2. Click Participants Participants icon
  3. Add or change participants for your task on the Participants screen.
  4. (Optional) ​When the task changes status, you can send notifications using e-mail, Viva Engage, Salesforce Chatter, or SMS:
  5. (Optional) If you want to configure your task to show on a mobile device, click Advanced Advanced icon > Mobile View Mobile View icon.

General Configuration

Specifies the basic settings for the Standard Task With Timeout activity.

Figure: General Configuration screen

General Configuration screen

Fields

Field NameDefinition

Display Name

Description:
Specifies the activity name that shows in your process.
Allowed Values:
One line of text (a string).

Accepted:

  • Letters
  • Numbers
  • Spaces
Default Value:
None
Accepts Variables:
No
Example:
This is a common configuration field that is used in many examples. Refer to:
  • Examples - Step-by-step use case examples, information about what types of examples are provided in the AgilePoint NX Product Documentation, and other resources where you can find more examples.

Description

Description:
Specifies an optional text description for your activity.
Allowed Values:
More than one line of text.
Default Value:
None
Accepts Variables:
No

Time To Complete

Description:
Specifies the maximum amount of time that should be allowed for the completion of the task associated with this activity before it is considered Overdue. This is a combination of a number of minutes, hours, days, or weeks.
Allowed Values:
A number of minutes, hours, days, or weeks.
Default Value:
1 Day
Accepts Variables:
Yes

External form to be associated with this task

Description:
Specifies the name of the task that shows in a participant's task list.

In most cases, for processes that use ASP.NET forms, this value also determines the file names for the .aspx form pages.

Allowed Values:
The values for this property change with the type of process you are using:
  • Generic - Does this:
    • Specifies the name that shows in the participant's Task List for this task.
    • If you create an ASP.NET project for this process in AgilePoint Developer, a new .aspx page is created for each human task with the same file name as the value of the Work to Perform property.
  • SPList - Specifies the name that shows in the participant's Task List for this task.
  • AgileForms - Specifies the name that shows in the participant's Task List for this task.

    The default value for this field is FormRender. AgilePoint recommends you change this value.

Default Value:
None, except for AgileForms processes.
Accepts Variables:
No

Participants

Specifies the people, groups, or roles assigned to a human task.

Figure: Participants screen

Participants screen

Fields

Field NameDefinition

Details

Description:
Shows participants for the task.
Allowed Values:
  • Any user, group, or role - You can add users, groups, or roles as participants, as long as ProcessInitiator is also included in the list.
  • A process data variable.
  • ProcessInitiator - This is a process data variable for that represents a participant who completes a form to start a process instance. This value is required for start tasks.
Default Value:
  • ProcessInitiator - For start tasks.
  • None - For other tasks.
Accepts Variables:
Yes
Example:
Refer to:

Add Roles, Groups and Users

Description:
Specifies a category of participants to add to the task. The list of participants of the type you select shows.
Allowed Values:
  • Groups - Shows your AgilePoint groups.

    To create a group, refer to Groups.

  • Roles - Shows your AgilePoint roles.

    To create a role, refer to Roles.

  • Users - Shows your AgilePoint users.

    To add a new user, refer to Users.

When a group or role with more than 100 members is added to the participants list, a warning message indicates that performance may be negatively impacted.

Default Value:
Roles
Accepts Variables:
No
Example:
Refer to:
Limitations:

The warning message for maximum participants is available in these releases:

Search

Function:
Does a search based on the specified criteria.

The maximum number of participants to complete this task

Description:
Specifies the number of group members who need to be assigned as participants for a task.
Allowed Values:
  • An integer that specifies a number of participants within a group required to complete a task.
  • Unlimited Participants - Specifies that all members of a group are required to participate.
Default Value:
1
Example:
If the participant is set to a group of users, and Max number of people to complete this task is 2, then 2 members of the group actually are required to participate in the task.

Assign task to the same participants each time activity runs

Description:
Specifies if, when a activity runs more than one time during a process, the same participants must complete the task each time.
Allowed Values:
  • Selected - If an activity is runs more than one time, the same participants who took assignment the first time are also assigned the task each time after.
  • Deselected - If an activity is runs more than one time, any participants can take assignment each time.
Default Value:
Selected
Example:
Ann is part of a group, and takes assignment for a task. She rejects the task. If this field is selected, the next time the process starts this task, the same user, Ann is assigned the task. If this field is deselected, the task goes back into the pool, and anyone in the group can take assignment.

Also refer to: