Creator/Approver: Working with Input Tasks

As the creator of an input task (Approver), you mark an input task as completed or provide other feedback based on how the task is returned to you.

Input tasks are sent to assignees. The assignees make changes to the data, or they decline the task. In both situations, the task comes back to you and you mark it as completed.

Working with tasks involves one or more of the following situations:.

Check Approval Status of Input Tasks

The Summary page for a task shows the current approval status for input tasks.

  • Default view: see a high-level view of the number of assignees for each type of status (In Progress, Open, Rejected, and so on).

  • Hierarchy view: expand to see the status for each assignee.

    The overall status shows Partially Accomplished if some assignees have accomplished their tasks and some have not finished or have canceled.

Assignee Accepts Input Task
After an assignee completes an input task, you receive a notification to that effect.

  1. Access the task in one of the following ways:

    • Open (Notifications) and choose the task.

    • On the Home screen, open the input task from the Calendar Highlights tile or the Recent Stories tile.

    • Go to the Calendar and select your input task there. The Task panel appears, where you can open the attached work file to access your input task.

    • Go to the Files page, open the Input Forms folder and navigate to your input task.

    The Summary page shows the updated status of the task.

  2. To view the input from an assignee:

    1. Under Selected Assignees, select the assignee.

      The story switches to the input task page.

    2. When you are satisfied with the results, go back to the Summary page, locate the assignee, and then select (Approve).

      Tip
      If you have received feedback from all assignees and are satisfied with it, select Approve All.

    The status for the assignee changes to Accomplished.

If you decide that the feedback is inaccurate or incomplete, you can select (Reject). The system sends the input task back to the assignee.

Assignee Declines Input Task

An assignee can choose to Decline the input task. When that happens, the approver has the option to exempt that assignee (select (Accept)), or to (Resend) the task to the assignee for a response.

When the approver exempts the assignee, the status changes to Declined, and the assignee no longer has permission to view the input task details.

Sending a Reminder

You can send a reminder to all assignees who have not yet completed the task.

  1. On the Summary page, select On-The-Fly Reminder.

  2. Enter a text to remind the assignees of their tasks.

  3. Click Send.

Assigning the Input Task to a Substitute

You can choose to assign the task to a different person.

To assign the task to a different assignee, do the following:
  1. Find the current assignee in the Selected Assignees list and choose (Change User).
  2. From the Change User dialog, select the substitute.
  3. Select OK.

All dimensions that were assigned to the original person are now assigned to the substitute.

Removing an Assignee

You can remove an assignee from the task – even if the task is in progress – as long as that assignee has not already submitted their results.

To remove the assignee, find the assignee in the Selected Assignees list and choose (Remove User). The assignee is removed; they will also receive a notification that they have been removed.

If all assignees of the task are removed, the input task is set to Canceled.

Completing an Input Task

Once you have dealt with the input from all assignees, either by approving or exempting, and all assigned tasks are accomplished, the data that has been entered by the assignees is transmitted to the original story. After you've published your private version of the story, the data will be public for everyone who can see the story.

You can discontinue an input task at any time, even if the assignees have not submitted feedback yet. When you click Discontinue, you can set the status for all assigned tasks in the Discontinue Input Event dialog box. Decide what to do with the information that has been gathered depending on the status of the assignee:

  • Keep status Canceled: no information will be saved.

  • Change status to Accomplished: all data that had been submitted will be approved and stored, even for Rejected tasks.