Task Delegation
Delegating your tasks means that for a certain period of time, you will grant a colleague the authority to validate, cancel and save tasks that are assigned to you. This can be particularly useful if you are unavailable for some time (e.g. holiday leave, sick leave, maternity leave and so on).
1 Overview and Definition of Terms
A delegation from user A to user B gives user B the right to validate, cancel and save manual tasks that are assigned to user A for a specific time period.
If a manual task is assigned to a user that has an active delegation in place, the manual task will be accessible to the representative. Email / Nofication tasks will also be sent to the representative. The representative, however, will not be able to launch requests on behalf of the delegator.
A delegation can be set at a project level or at a global level. A project delegation is only effective for a chosen project whereas a global delegation is effective for all projects that do not have an active project delegation. Only one delegation can be active per scope at any specific time although many can be scheduled for different time periods.
Definition of Terms
| Term | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Delegator | The user to whom the tasks were originally assigned. This user has created a delegation to give the representative authority to action these tasks. |
| Representative | The user that has been granted authority to action the delegator's tasks (the delgatee). |
| Pending Delegation | A delegation that has been created but is not yet in effect (set for a future date). |
2 Delegation Lifecycle
2.1 Creating a Delegation
You can create a delegation in the My Settings or User Management module of DigitalSuite Studio.
By creating a delegation a user nominates a representative to action their manual tasks for a set period of time. When a user creates a delegation, he can specify whether to start it immediately or at a future date. The user can also specify the delegation's end date and time.
2.2 Delegation Status
A delegation will have one of three status:
| Status | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Pending | The delegation has been created but is not yet active. |
| Active | The delegation is currently active - the representive can action the delegator's tasks. |
| Deactivated | The delgation is no longer active. |
2.3 Activation
Delegations are automatically activated by the server: - Delegations starting in the past or now are automatically activated after creation. - Delegations starting in the future are pending after creation and will be automatically activated by the server within five minutes on the start date.
Delegation is retroactive - tasks created before the activation of a delegation and assigned to the delegator become accessible to the representative as soon as the delegation is activated.
A delegation that is created to begin immediately or in the past will be activated imminently (within five minutes).
2.4 Ending a Delegation
An active delegation ends when its end date is reached or it can be ended manually by the delegator himself. When the delegation is inactivated, the representative will no longer be able to access the delegator's tasks.
Whilst a delegation is pending (created but not yet activated), it can be deleted and it will not appear in the user's delegation history. Once a delegation has been activated, it can no longer be deleted - only stopped and it will appear in the user's delegation history. This distinction means that a user can have a reliable record of whether or not his tasks were available to someone else at a certain time.
3 Rights Management
3.1 Task Configuration
Manual and email/notification tasks are configured as delegable by default. It is possible to configure tasks to be non-delegable in the process design; this means that even if the assigned user has an active delegation, the task will remain assigned to him/her and inaccessible to the representative.
3.2 Validation of a Task by a Representative
When a representative validates a manual task on behalf of the delegator, the representative does not have to be part of the correct lanes (project and process) to be able to update a request, the delegation itself will provide sufficient rights to validate a task.
The representative will become the P_user of the request and the request will run in the representative's name. Each time a representative update a manual task, the P_user.delegators value will be set with the list of delegators of the representative.
If the web interface contains a history widget, both the delegator's and the representative's names will be shown (e.g. "Jane Doe on behalf of John Doe"), with the following exeception: If the representative has the Supervisor role, only the representative's name is displayed (e.g. "Jane Doe" without "on behalf of John Doe").
3.3 The Representative's Access Rights
The representative inherits the delegator's access rights at project level (apart from Process instances).
4 Reporting
A user can access a list of tasks that have been delegated to him/her by using a specific appinstance report. To do this, the report should use the filter Delegated to associated with the value Connected User.
A representative only needs to be a USER on the project containing the report in order to see the list of tasks that are delegated to him, but only via a report with the Delegated to filter.
The filter Delegated to can also be used to filter on users other than the connected user.
A report can also display to whom an appinstance is delegated by displaying the column Delegated to.
5 Deactivated Users
Before deactivating a user it is good practice to consider creating a delegation for his tasks. If no delegation is in place, the user's tasks, and subsequently the whole request, will become blocked. If a delegation is in place, the representative will be able to execute the delegator's tasks and hence prevent the request becoming blocked.
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