Using or Accepting Substitution

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Using or Accepting Substitution

You can assign another user to manage your tasks if you are absent or unavailable.
You can define a nominee to receive your tasks or fill in for you.
You can create multiple substitution rules to cover all eventualities.
You can also accept tasks of other users (if they have assigned them to you).

The nominee can display and manage the rules for task substitution.

Tasks of a Nominee

A nominee who is a substitute is a portal user who can manage and process work items of another user in their absence.

The nominee can perform the following tasks:

Receive and process your work items
Monitor all incoming tasks without processing them
Work on more than one of your work items

Prerequisites

The assignment to the portal user must be unique. Only one portal user can be assigned to a back-end user.

Substitution rules must be maintained only using UWL, to avoid inconsistent behavoir of the rules.

Procedure

Managing the Substituted User Selector

An assignee can select which tasks will be displayed in his task list by sleecting in the Substituted User Selector one of the following radio buttons:

My Items – only the assignee’s original tasks are displayed
Items on behalf of...– only the tasks assigned to you by a different user are displayed. If more than one user assigns tasks to you, you can choose the user whose tasks you want to see.
All Items – all tasks (assignee’s original and assigned tasks) are displayed

By default, theMy Items radio button is selected. The other radio buttons cannot be selected by default. To remove the Substituted User Selector, you must change the UWL iView properties. However, the user will not be able to see his assigned tasks since the default selected radio button is only My Items. For more information on UWL iView properties, see Configuring iView Properties.

Create Substitution Rules

Click (Quick info) and choose Manage Substitution Rules.
In the My Substitution Rules table, choose Create Rule.
Step 1: Define Rule

You can define the tasks you want to assign to a nominee. You can define that a nominee either receives your tasks (for example, when you are on vacation) or fills in for you (for example, in your absence).
1. Use the selection option to select a nominee or enter a nominee. Choose Select.
2. Select which task types you want to assign to the user.
  Standard way: Default: All (the nominee is the substitute for all tasks)
  
  Note
  Professional covers functional tasks, Disciplinary HR-related tasks.
  
  If you are using multiple systems, make sure profiles‘ names and definitions are maintained consistently across all systems.
  
  End of the note.
3. The nominee can receive your task or fill in for you.
  1. To send the work items in the nominee list, choose Receive My Tasks.
  2. To add a user as a substitute for your tasks in your absence, choose Fill In For Me. This requires the nominees to perform an additional step to see the work items in their task list.
  Note
  The nominee must choose Accept (in the Other Users' Substitution Rules table) to display the work items in their task list.
  
  End of the note.
4. Choose Next.
Step 2: Set Rule Activation

This step provides an option for enabling or disabling the rule.
1. To enable the rule, choose On. Additional options are available for enabling the rule at once (upon saving) or later (select a date from the calendar).
2. Choose Save.
Entries are displayed in the nominee's task list.

Manage Substitution Rules

You can see who you have assigned as your substitute in the My Substitution Rules table. Here you can manage the substitution rules.

The following options are available for managing substitution rules:

Option	Description
Activate	Activates the substitution status.
Deactivate	Deactivates the substitution status. This action removes the work items from the assignee list. Note The turn on/off functionality is supported by Java Workflow and BPM. To have this functionality working for all systems, at least one of the two systems mentioned above should be set up. End of the note.
Delete	Removes the selected rule.
Update	Synchronizes with provider data if there are changes to the rules in the provider system and changes in the system configuration.
Redo	Attempts to redefine the rule for a particular system.
Rule Activation (displayed as a link)	Displays errors during creation of rule.
Status	Displays connection errors or information about the connection status. For more information, see the FAQs and Error Messages section below.

Other Users' Substitution Rules

This table displays all the substitution rules, which are created by other users and for which the currently logged on user is the nominee. You will be able to see the Take Over option if the Fill in for me type of substitution rule was selected when the substitution rule was created.

The following are the options available for managing substitution rules created by other users:

Option	Description
Accept	The substitute can accept the items of the original user. The work items of the original user are displayed in the substitute's work list as soon as the substitute explicitly accepts them. This is mainly for a scenario in which the original user is unexpectedly absent, particularly if this will be for an extended period of time.
End Take Over	When a rule of type Fill in for me has been taken over by the assignee, this button will be available instead of the take over. When this button is pressed, the items will disappear from the assignee’s work list.

Restrictions

None of the created substitution rules have an end date.

Back-End Workflow Systems:

You cannot assign more than one task to a nominee.

FAQs and Error Messages

Substitution FAQs
Question	Reply
How can I display a user's entries?	The entries are in the dropdown list under Entries in Task. You can personalize the view by adding the Substituted for display attribute. This way you will be able to distinguish if a task is a substituted and who is the original user if the task is substituted.
Can the substitution be transferred from one nominee to another? Example: If the nominee is absent, do his nominees receive my tasks?)	No
What is the difference between substitution and forwarding a task?	In substitution, both the original user and the nominee can see and process the tasks; a forwarded work item is only visible to the nominee.
Can a nominee decline a substitution assignment?	No, especially not if it is of type Receive My Tasks. For the Fill In For Me type, a nominee can decide not to accept tasks.
Is the nominee notified of their assignment as substitute? Is the original user notified when a nominee accepts?	No (to both questions)
A system is not available at the time I create a rule. Can I insert the rule once the system is functioning again?	Yes, by using the Retry function.
Why is the Deactivate function disabled?	The activate/deactivate functionality is supported by Java Workflow and BPM. Make sure at least one of those is deployed and configured.
Can I define the same rule for the same nominee for different time periods?	No, this is not allowed.
What happens if I deactivate the Fill In For Me rule when a nominee has already accepted the tasks?	The acceptance is canceled. If the rule if activated or recreated, the nominee must accept it again.
What happens if I deactivate or remove a rule while one of the nominees is working on my work item?	The resultant behavior depends on the constraint defined by the provider.
Can nominees see rules assigned to them in the future?	Only the assignment active at the time of logon is displayed (and can be accepted).
What happens if a system does not support the substitution?	The system displays an error message on the status.

General Error Messages
Error Message	Possible Solution
System does not support substitution methods	Older workflow systems (before 6.40 SPS12) that have not opened a substitution API.
Problems connecting to the system	The cause of the connection problem may be that a system is not available. There may be security problems with the logon (for example, user assignment). You can repeat the action.
System does not support this task	The system does not support substitution for a particular task.
Provider returned internal error	General error from provider, such as an invalid user ID You can repeat the action.
Substitution role not defined in system	While getting a rule definition that has already been defined (update), a rule that is already defined in another system is not available in this system. Example: The system has been added or was not available before. You can repeat the action.
The system does not support the domain definition.	The system has no time period support for the rule.
Substitution rule already exists and is effective for the nominee	The user is not authorized to create the same task for the same nominee. Activate or deactivate the rule or remove the existing rule.
System does not support multiple task assignments for the same nominee	Example: The user can only assign one task to a nominee in workflow.
Invalid portal user ID for system (rare)	Check whether a user assignment is required or the user ID is too long.
Internal error/Unknown task (rare)	Cannot resolve task selected for the rule.
System connection timeout	Configurable timeout value, which is always visible on the UWL administration screen.