"Save Draft" option at task level to save and exit the task form with no new task / email notification

That is a lot to take in and im not sure that I am understanding the question fully, but here is some suggestions...

A few assumptions that I am making:

* You are using Tempo
* You are using the default Appian task notifications

Default Appian Task Notifications can be disabled. Check the Assignment tab for the task node. You can implement a custom email notification on the first time that you enter the task node.

The only way to save the previous task id is either by not moving out of the task, or by capturing it when you leave the input task node and storing it in a pv. But the task would have been marked as completed, so im not sure what use that would be.

You can implement a solution where you have a button that updates the form data to the database using a!writeToDataStoreEntity. That way you do not need to leave the task form. However, you will not be able to go to the task list view. You maybe able to implement a choose() and display a different view if the user has selected the button, but if you are using Tempo, then it wont be the Tempo task list, but one that you have made up.

Anyway, there are a few random suggestions that aren't necessarily linked to each other, but may help you come up with a better solution.

Hi Benjamin,

Thanks for reviewing.

Our requirement is to close the task form after saving the provided information in associated process variables, when user hits "Save and Exit" button. No DB write should occur until user hits "Submit" (separate button), which in turn should complete the task and commit changes in DB.

"Save and Exit" - Save my current work on this task. I will be back later with more information. When I come back, I should be able to launch the same task from the task notification email, I got the first time. No new task notification email should be triggered every time I save and exit. I can save and exit from the same task multiple times over a span of 2-3 days, for the purpose of collecting more information offline.

Mitesh

The requirement as stated has mutually exclusive conditions -- the task email relies on the task ID for the original task, and any button that the user clicks to leave the task while saving data, would close that original task (and ID).

To me this is potentially a user training issue, with several fairly easy compromise solutions, here are 2 off the top of my head:
1) they could use the out-of-box "save" button and then safely click away, back to their "tasks" list.
2) they could have the requested "save and close" button and a working task link in their email list, just by allowing the system to send a new email and the users can discard the original email.

Either of the above solutions would enable users to perform the action as many times as they need, as stated in the requirement. In fact, it seems to me that all of the requirement parameters are satisfied, with the exception of needing a new task with the same task ID, which is not a possibility due to technical reasons explained previously.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the analysis. 2 solutions you suggested is something I already mentioned in the problem description. Major reason behind this post was to check if there is some third / out-of-the-box concept which satisfy the exact requirement, which I guess there isn't.

For example, if Appian is going to add another link "Save and Exit" like default "Save Draft" , in future versions, which will allow the user to move back to the task list after saving all provided information (saving user an extra click), without generating a new task event.

Mitesh

I understand what you mean - you might try submitting a feature request to Appian to either add a new button to do this or potentially to allow some configurability of the behavior of the current one. I have no idea how quickly they might implement such a thing if ever, but if there is a lot of demand for such functionality they might include it in some future release.

You could build around the same task ID issue, though it is overly complicated (not to mention the increased maintenance) and I would absolutely chalk it up to a user training issue.

What you could do is:
1. Turn off all task notification emails
2. When you create a task, you can run query analytics to grab the task id and then send a custom email to the task assignees using an html template you copy from Appian's task notification email.
3. The task link would be pointed towards a WEB API with some parameters about the task assignee and the type of task
4. When a user clicks the link in the email, the WEB API would take those parameters and serve the up to date task link

So if I am understanding correctly, you are recommending doing a REST GET call to a Web API to generate the actual task URL? If yes, can a Web API redirect the user to the actual (calculated) task URL? How will the response from Web API will help user save an extra click?

Mitesh

Does Appian take these kind of feature requests for a specific client?

Regarding the demand of such functionality, I assume this could be really helpful.

"Save Draft" - Useful when you are working on a long form and want to continue working, doing periodic saves to prevent losing any work because of unnatural circumstances.

"Save and Exit" - You opened a task which requires some details you don't have handy and you want to come back to it at a later time. And want to continue with the next task in your bucket.

Thoughts?

Mitesh

I am not recommending using a Web API to mitigate the Task ID issue. But yes, you can leverage a WEB API to serve up a task link. Now that I think about it, I am not 100% that you could do this directly in an email link, when I encountered a similar scenerio we were able to leverage a service layer to handle communication/authentication between a link and an Appian Web API.

Well that might be feasible, but may not be helpful in this case. Thanks for checking!