12.2 Managing Your Team’s Tasks

When a task is in a workflow queue, you can perform the following actions:

12.2.1 Viewing Tasks by Team Member

A team manager can view a team member’s tasks. Only tasks available to the team can be listed in the task list.

  1. Click Team Tasks in the My Team’s Work group of actions to display the Team Tasks window.

    Team Tasks page

  2. Click the Select a team down-arrow to display teams. Select a team for which you have been designated a team manager.

  3. Select a user.

    If the User selection box contains a name, click the User down-arrow to display all the members of the selected team. Click the name of the person whose tasks you want to display.

    If the User selection box is empty, click the Object Selector icon to open the Object Lookup window. Specify search criteria for the team member, click Search, and select the team member.

    Your administrator defines your team and defines whether you see an automatically populated selection list or an empty list with an Object Selector icon Object Selector icon beside the selection box.

  4. (Optional) Specify a Timeout interval to find tasks that expire within the time you select. Specify one or more digits, for example 10.

    If you specify a Timeout interval, choose whether the interval is days, weeks, or months.

  5. Use Filter by to select the subset of tasks you want to see for a team member. To see tasks that grant or revoke resources for the team member, select Recipient. To see tasks that the team member is responsible for doing, select Assigned to. You can select both kinds of tasks.

  6. In the Task List Columns selection box, select one or more task columns to display and click the right-arrow to add them to the task list. The order in which you select the columns is the order in which they appear in the display. Columns can include:

    • Task. (Required.)
    • Request
    • Recipient
    • Request Date
    • Type
    • Assigned to
    • Requested by
    • Claimed
    • Timeout
    • Priority
    • Digital Signature

  7. Click Search to list the selected user’s tasks.

  8. To see another team member’s tasks, or tasks for another team, return to Step 2 and define a new search.

12.2.2 Viewing Tasks by User or Group

A Provisioning Application Administrator can view tasks by user or group.

  1. Click Team Tasks in the My Team’s Work group of actions to display the Team Tasks window.

  2. For Selection Type, choose User or Group.

    Specify Group radio button

  3. To look up a name, click the Object Selector icon Object Selector icon, specify lookup criteria, and click Search.

    Click a user name or group name to select it. The following sample of the object lookup page was a lookup of all groups:

  4. Optionally, specify a Timeout interval to find tasks that expire within the interval. Specify one or more digits.

    If you specify a Timeout interval, choose whether the interval is days, weeks, or months.

  5. Use Filter by to select a subset of tasks. To see tasks that grant or revoke resources to the user or group, select Recipient. To see tasks that the user or group is responsible for doing, select Assigned to. You can select both kinds of tasks.

  6. In the Task List Columns selection box, select one or more task descriptions to display, then click the right-arrow to add the descriptions to the task list. The order in which you add the descriptions is the order in which they appear as column headers in the task list. Your choices are:

    • Task. (Required.)
    • Request
    • Recipient
    • Request Date
    • Type
    • Assigned to
    • Requested by
    • Claimed
    • Timeout
    • Priority
    • Digital Signature

  7. Click Search to display the tasks.

    Group tasks displayed are those explicitly assigned to the group, not those assigned to each member of the group. To see tasks assigned to an individual, view the tasks for that person.

  8. To see tasks for another user or group, return to Step 2 and define a new search.

12.2.3 Using the Task Displays

The task list appears in the Template Display or the Exhibit Display format. Your administrator chooses your display format.

The Template Display Format

The Template Display is the default display format. Figure 12-1 shows an example:

Figure 12-1 Example of Task List in Template Display Format

Team Tasks: Template Display

The template display lets you sort columns by value, set the number of tasks per page, and page through the task list.

Sorting a Column by Value

  1. Click the heading of a column to sort the values in the column.

  2. Click the heading again to reverse the order of the sort.

Setting the Number of Tasks per Page

  1. Click the down-arrow of the # of tasks per page selection box on the right side above the task list.

  2. Choose a page length of 5, 10, or 25 tasks per page.

Paging Through the Task List

  1. Click First, Previous, Next, and Last to page through the task list.

The Exhibit Display Format

The Exhibit Display format enables you to filter your retrieved data. Figure 12-2 shows an example of the Exhibit Display format:

Figure 12-2 Example of Task List in Exhibit Display Format

Sorting a Column by Value

  1. Click the heading of a column to sort the values in the column.

  2. Click the heading again to reverse the order of the sort.

Filtering Your View of the Data

The Exhibit Display format shows the whole data set returned by your search. You can use filters to filter the data set. The filters are on the right side of the display and have the names of column headings from your search. You can filter the data by Task, Request, Assigned To, and Requested By column values. Filters only appear if the corresponding columns are included in the display.

NOTE:The Exhibit Display refers to filters as facets.

Figure 12-3 shows an example with a Request filter and an Assigned To filter:

Figure 12-3 Two Filters in the Exhibit Display

Beside each filter parameter is a number and optionally a check mark. The number indicates the number of tasks that match that parameter within the current filter set. The check mark indicates whether the filter parameter is selected. Initially, all filter parameters are selected, enabling you to see all the data from your search. If a filter has only one parameter, that parameter is automatically selected.

  1. To view a subset of data, click one or more parameters in one or more filter boxes.

    NOTE:Selecting a parameter in one filter can change the parameters available in other filters.

    For example, if you click Margo’s name in the Assigned To filter and Kevin’s name in the Requested By filter, you see only tasks that are both assigned to Margo Mackenzie and requested by Kevin Chester, as shown in Figure 12-4:

    Figure 12-4 Example of Task List After Applying Two Filters

Exporting Data from Your Display

  1. To export the data that you see in your display, click Copy List to Clipboard (at the top of the display).

  2. Choose Tab Separated Values or Generated HTML of this view. The Exhibit Display generates a coded text file.

  3. Copy the contents to your clipboard.

  4. Paste from your clipboard to a destination file.

  5. Click Close or ESC to close the window of coded text.

Understanding the Display Icons

The Template and Exhibit views both show icons that indicate the status of each task in the result set. This section describes the display icons that appear in the task list:

Type Column

Status flags appear under the Type column. Flags are defined in the Legend. To access the Legend, click the multicolored icon in the right side of the Team Tasks title bar. Figure 12-5 shows the Legend.

Figure 12-5 Icons that appear in the Team Tasks displays

Priority Column

A red flag identifies a high-priority task. This priority is set in the Provisioning Request Definition created by your administrator.

Claimed Column

The Claimed icon in the Claimed column indicates that the task has been claimed.

Digital Signature Column

The Digital Signature icon in the Digital Signature column indicates that a digital signature is required to approve or deny the task.

12.2.4 Selecting a Task

To select and open a task in the task list:

  1. Click the name of the task.

    The Team Tasks Task Detail form is displayed.

    Task Detail form

    When a task is assigned to multiple approvers, the Task Detail form displays the Multiple Approvers icon next to the Assigned To field, and displays text below the icon to indicate that multiple approvals are necessary.

    Multiple Approvers icon

  2. To display more information about a task assigned to multiple approvers, click the text under the Multiple Approvers icon:

    Multiple Approvers text

    A pop-up window displays that indicates how many approvals are required, who the current addressees are, and what the approval status is currently.

    Multiple Approvers screen

    The requirements for the task depend on how the task was configured by your administrator:

    • If the approval type is group, the task has been assigned to several users within a group, but only one is expected to claim and approve the task.

    • If the approval type is multiple approvers, the task has been assigned to several addressees, and all of the addressees must claim and approve the task.

    • If the approval type is quorum, the task has been assigned to several addressees, and a quorum of addressees is sufficient to approve the task. The definition of a quorum is configured by the administrator. To define the quorum, the administrator specifies an approval condition that specifies the precise number of approvals or the percentage of approvals needed.

  3. To claim a task, follow the instructions at Section 12.2.5, Claiming a Task.

  4. To reassign a task, follow the instructions at Section 12.2.6, Reassigning a Task

  5. To view comment history for the task, click View Comment History.

    A pop-up window lets you see user and system comments. The order in which comments appear is determined by the time stamp associated with each comment. Comments entered first are displayed first. For parallel approval flows, the order of activities being processed concurrently can be unpredictable.

    1. To display user comments, click Show User Comments.

      User comments include the following kinds of information:

      • The date and time when each comment was added.

      • The name of the activity to which each comment applies. The list of activities displayed includes user and provisioning activities that have been processed or are currently being processed.

      • The name of the user who made the comment. If the comment is generated by the workflow system, the name of the application (for example, IDMProv) is the user name. Comments generated by the workflow system are localized automatically.

      • The comment text, which includes the name of the user who is the current assignee for each activity.

      NOTE:The workflow designer can disable the generation of user comments for a workflow. For more information, see the Identity Manager User Application: Design Guide.

    2. To display system comments, click Show System Comments.

      System comments include the following kinds of information:

      • The date and time when each comment was added.

      • The name of the activity to which each comment applies. When you display system comments, all activities in the workflow are listed. The list of activities includes those that have been processed or are currently being processed.

      • The name of the user who made the comment. If the comment is generated by the workflow system, the name of the application (for example, IDMProv) is the user name. Comments generated by the workflow system are localized automatically.

      • The comment text, which indicates what action was taken for the activity.

      System comments are intended primarily for debugging purposes. Most business users do not need to look at the system comments for a workflow.

    3. To scroll through a long list of comments, click the arrows at the bottom of the screen. For example, to scroll to the next page, click the Next arrow.

      Next arrow

    4. Click Close to close the window.

  6. To return to the task list, click Back.

NOTE:The Claim and Reassign buttons are visible only if these actions are permitted by the team request rights.

12.2.5 Claiming a Task

To claim a team member’s task to work on:

  1. Click Claim.

    Claim button

    The Form Detail section of the page is updated to include the Deny and Approve buttons, as well as any other action buttons included by the flow definition, and the appropriate fields become editable.

    If the resource you’ve requested requires a digital signature, the Digital Signature Required icon appears in the upper right corner of the page.

    Digital Signature Required icon

    In addition, on Internet Explorer, a message appears indicating that you need to press the Spacebar or the Enter key to activate the digital signature applet.

    Internet Explorer message

  2. If you’re working on a task that requires a digital signature, perform these steps:

    1. If you’re using a smart card, insert the smart card into the smart card reader.

    2. On Internet Explorer, press the Spacebar or the Enter key to activate the applet.

      At this point, your browser might display a security warning message.

      Security warning

    3. Click Run to proceed.

    4. Fill in the fields in the approval form. The fields on the form vary depending on which resource you requested.

    5. Click the check box next to the digital signature confirmation message to indicate that you are ready to sign.

      The digital signature confirmation message varies depending on how the provisioning resource was configured by the administrator.

      The applet then displays a pop-up window that allows you to select a certificate. The pop-up window lists certificates imported to the browser as well as certificates imported to the smart card (if one is currently connected).

      Select Certificate screen

    6. Select the certificate you want to use and click Select.

      Select Certificate screen

    7. If you select a certificate that has been imported into your browser, you need to type the password for the certificate in the Password field on the request form.

    8. If you select a certificate that has been imported to your smart card, type the PIN for your smart card and click OK.

      You do not need to type the password for the certificate if you’re using a smart card, because the certificate password has already been transmitted to the card.

      PIN screen

      If your administrator has enabled the ability to preview the user agreement, the Preview button is enabled.

    9. Click Preview to see the user agreement.

      If the digital signature type is set to Form, a PDF document is displayed.

      If the digital signature type is set to data, an XML document is displayed.

  3. To deny the request, click Deny.

    Deny button

  4. To approve the request, click Approve.

    Approve button

    The user application displays a message indicating whether the action was successful.

12.2.6 Reassigning a Task

To reassign a team member’s task:

  1. Click Reassign in the Team Tasks task detail window.

    Reassign button

  2. Click the Object Selector icon Object Selector icon next to your chosen entry box.

  3. In the New Assigned To drop-down list, select the user to whom you want to reassign the task.

    New Assigned To drop-down list

  4. (Optional) Type a comment in the Comments field to explain the reason for the reassignment.

  5. Click Submit.

    The user application displays a message indicating whether the action was successful.

12.2.7 Releasing a Task

You release a task so that it can be assigned to or claimed by another team member.

  1. Click Release in the Team Tasks Task Detail window.

    Release button