User Tasks

In a business process, a user task represents an action like a manager approving a form submission or a user revising a previously submitted form. In contrast, service tasks are carried out by machines, not people.

Use a user task if someone needs to take action in the business process. If a user should be notified but will not take action, use an email service task. Public users cannot participate in user tasks.

The following options can be configured in a user task:

Who will be assigned the user task (you can assign by team, to specific individuals, or by a round-robin task distribution)
Task reassignment options
Email notifications to those assigned the task
Task priority
The form associated with the task
Whether users are allowed to save the form as a draft
What kinds of actions users can perform on the form (approve, reject, submit, or a custom action)
The sequence flows that can be taken after the task. Which flow is taken can be configured to depend on task variables.

Configuring User Tasks

The General tab

Double-click the user task on the canvas to open its properties window.
In Name, enter a name for the user task. You can also add variables in the task name.
Under Description, describe the task's role in the process.
Under Assign to, select the team or users to whom you want to assign the user task. Tasks can be reassigned during the process.
- Team: Assign the tasks to an entire team. You can select a team, or you can create a team by selecting Create team.
- Team based on variables: Assign the task to a team using variables.
- Users: Assign the tasks to many users. Click the Insert variables button to assign the task based on a field value or process variable.
Under Assignment Options, select from the following:
- Email users when this task is assigned or reassigned: Send users an email when they are assigned or reassigned the task.
  - Select whether the emails are sent when assigned, reassigned, or both.
  - Click Edit to compose the email using the rich-text editor.
    - Click Show Reply to/CC/BCC to set additional features. Reply to is empty by default. Click Hide Reply to/CC/BCC to hide these options.
    - You may use variables in each of the address fields and in the subject, attachment, and body fields of the message.
    - Optional: Click the checkbox for Include action history to attach a PDF of the last 10 completed steps of action history in the email. Use the action history section title field to name the action history section, including the option of using the token button (right arrow) to include process variables in the name. Under Action history location, choose between the following options:
      - Before the form: The action history will be placed at the beginning of the form as a single document.
      - After the form: The action history will be placed at the end of the form as a single document.
      - As separate document: The action history will be included as a separate file from the form.
- Round robin task distribution: Assigns the task to a team member randomly, when the task has not been assigned to a team member before. This option is not available when you select Users in step 4.
Optional: Under Action history privacy, select Hide action history from the task participant when viewing this user task to prevent the user from seeing the process history when viewing the task. This will not affect email service tasks. This option may be over-ridden by the action history settings at the process level.
Optional: Under Due Date, select a deadline for the task. You can define an exact due date, a relative due date based on a variable in your process, or no due date at all. Setting Deadlines in Business Processes
Under Priority, select a priority level for this task. Task priorities help call attention to urgent tasks.
In the drop-down list next to the priority level, select Always if the priority should always be set to that level, or When if the priority should be set to that level only when certain criteria are met.

If you select Always, only one priority level can be specified for the task.
If you select When, click in the Conditional Expression box to create a conditional expression that will be evaluated to determine whether the task priority will be set. Learn more about creating conditional expressions.
After setting a condition for one priority level, you can set further conditions for other priority levels by clicking Add Condition.

Under Load Tasks Sequentially, select the checkbox if, in the case where the next user task in the process is assigned to the user who is carrying out this user task, you want the next form for the next user task to appear immediately after the user submits this task's form.
Note: This option will automatically load tasks only if the tasks are assigned to the same user. It will not automatically load tasks if the tasks are assigned to a group of users or team, even if the user completing the task is in both groups or teams.

The Form tab

Use the Form tab to select the form associated with this task.

Under Form, you can choose to use a specific form or select the form dynamically based on the value of a variable.
- Select a form: Use the drop-down to choose the specific form you want users to fill out.
- Form based on variable: Use the text box and variable picker to specify the name of the form you want the user to fill out. For example, you can create a form for students to complete. If the student indicates that the student is a mathematics major, the student will be prompted with one form after submission, that differs from the form that a chemistry major gets after submission. The value of the variable helps to identify whether to use the mathematics form or the chemistry form.
  - If there are no matching forms: A form with the variable name may not exist. In this situation, you must indicate how you want the instance to resolve the conflict. You can specify a default form, or you can suspend the instance.
- You can also select from the following options:
  - Make form read-only for users the task is assigned to: Allow the users to read the document but not to edit it. Note that when you select this option, the form does not display default values, formula values, or lookup rule values; it only shows carried over values. When a field does not contain carried over values, it appears blank to read-only users.
Optional: Select Make read-only for users this task is assigned to to prevent data on the form from being altered. For instance if the task is for approving or otherwise view only of the data submitted in a previous step.
Optional: Select Enable Compatibility Mode if support for screen readers may be needed.
Note: Enabling compatibility mode alters the default focus of the page. Users will need to click into the first form field to start filling out the form when this option is enabled, rather than it being the default cursor location.
Under Save as Draft, select from the following options:
- Show Save Draft button when viewing the task: Allows users to save the form as a draft using a Save Draft button. The draft is placed in the Drafts section of the Tasks tab.
Under Action Buttons, select the types of action you want the user to be able to perform and the labels for the actions. You can also click Add button to create a custom action and style it with CSS.
Toggle the Direct Approval option to green to allow the user to perform the task with one click from the Tasks tab.

The Outflows tab

Use to the Outflows tab to set up the outflow settings. Outflow settings let you specify when a particular pathway in your process should run. For example, after a user task in which a manager approves or denies a form, outflow settings let you designate one course of action for an approved form and another course for a denied form. Learn more.

The Reminders tab

Use the Reminders tab to set up task reminders. Reminders can send an email to remind the user(s) that a task is due or past due for action.

Setting Deadlines in Business Processes