8 Managing Workloads Among Users in Process Workspace

8.1 Managing the Availability of Users in Process Workspace

If a user is unavailable for a period of time and must delegate some or all assigned tasks to another user, then the user rules can automatically reassign the tasks based on certain conditions. More specifically, if a user is going on vacation, a vacation period can be associated with a rule to create a vacation rule.

For more information about creating user rules, see Section 3.9.1, "How to Create User Rules in Process Workspace."

For more information about setting a vacation rule, see Section 3.9.3, "How to Enable a Vacation Period in Process Workspace.".

8.2 Distributing Work among Users in a Group

To distribute work among users in a group, you create a rule for that group. Creating a group rule is similar to creating a user rule, with the addition of a list of the groups that you, as the logged-in user, manage.

For information about creating user rules, see Section 3.9.1, "How to Create User Rules in Process Workspace."

Examples of group rules include:

• Assigning tasks from a particular customer to a member of the group

• Ensuring an even distribution of task assignments to members of a group by using round-robin assignment

• Ensuring that high-priority tasks are routed to the least busy member of a group

For information about creating a group rule, see Section 3.9.2, "How to Create Group Rules in Process Workspace".

8.3 Setting Assignment Rules for Tasks with Multiple Assignees

For information about assignment rules for tasks with multiple assignees, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle SOA Suite.

8.4 Reassigning or Delegating Tasks in Process Workspace

A supervisor can reassign or delegate tasks to reportees. A user with BPMWorkflowReassign privileges can delegate a task to anyone.

For information about reassigning or delegating tasks, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle SOA Suite.

8.5 Using Reports to Manage Workflows in Process Workspace

Reports are available on the Tasks page in the Reports panel. Report results cannot be saved.

Figure 8-1 shows the Reports panel displaying the standard report types available.

Figure 8-1 Oracle Business Process Management Workspace Reports

For more information about reports, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle SOA Suite.

8.6 Using Dashboards to Manage Workflows in Process Workspace

Dashboards provide a variety of analytical information about the workload on users for the different processes being executed. For example, if a specific user has many tasks assigned to her, and she is making little progress, this would indicate that all those corresponding processes are blocked. Having this information enables you to reassign those tasks to someone else and, if necessary some user or group routing rules can be specified to manage the issue in the short term.

For more information about dashboards, see Chapter 7, "Using Dashboards in Process Workspace".

8.7 Handling Escalations in Process Workspace

Escalations are among the system actions you can perform from the Task Details page.

For more information about the Task Details page, see Section 2.3.1.2, "The Process Workspace Task Details Page".

If a user escalates a task, it is automatically assigned to whomever is specified in the escalation path.

The escalation path is specified by the administrator. If no escalation path is specified, then the task escalates to the user's supervisor who can reassign it from there.

If a task is assigned to a role, but none of the role members have claimed the task, then the task is escalated as specified in the escalation path for that role. If the task is assigned to a role and a role member has claimed the task, then the escalation goes to the role member's supervisor.

For information about how an administrator specifies the escalation path, see Section 10.5.2, "How to Specify the Escalation Path for a Role".