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Multiple Approvers to a Task

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 3:25 pm
by ees_pmo
Hello,

Just joined this site - I've been using it and the API to create an app to greatly simplify my job (sysadmin), and I love it, so thank you!

We just upgraded from 7.5 to 8. In 7.5, we used to be able to assign a document to multiple reviewers and by selecting "One user is enough..", the document went to both user's task lists. The first reviewer to approve it approved on behalf of the multiple reviewers, the document was then considered approved and the workflow advanced the document to the next reviewer (in the next step). All was fine and dandy.

I noticed that now, in version 8 and in this same situation, InfoRouter picks one of the multiple approvers (at random) and sends it to their task list. I read the workflow documentation and saw the note: "If the “One user is enough to perform the task” rule has been set, then infoRouter will pick one of the users and assign the task ONLY to that user." This doesn't work for us, though, because our reason for assigning the task to multiple reviewers was in the event that one of the reviewers was sick or otherwise out of the office, the document could still be approved by an alternate in a timely manner.

Is there any way to get the "old" functionality back? Thanks in advance!

Re: Multiple Approvers to a Task

Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 9:38 am
by infoRouter Guru
Hello,

The old way used to create tasks for multiple people and when one of the reviewers jumped on the task (one vote is enough was selected), the tasks assigned to other users were cancelled.

As you know, when users are assiggned a task, they get "Task Notifications" in the form of e-mail.
When one of the users completed, tasks assigned to the other assignees in the list were dropped. Unaware that their tasks were dropped, these assignees went ahead and started the process to review the document only to find out later that the task had been yanked from under them. We received a few angry remarks about this. :oops:

In the new version, we assign the task to one of the user specified based on their current workload (so the process of selecting the assignee is not really random).

The best way to get the old feature back (or something similar) is to assign a “supervisor” to those steps. If the selected user gets hit by a bus, the supervisor can step in and either re-assign the task to an alternate or perform the task (himself/herself) so the workflow moves forward.

In the upcoming releases we will allow for advanced configuration options such as “re-assign to alternate if overdue”.

Please let us know if you can think of such nifty options so we can add them to our work list for future releases.

The Guru