A task is assigned to a group.One of the user from the group accepts the task and be idle (do nothing, performs no action).After one hour the task should be reassigned back to the group.Please help here on how to acheive this?
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Task escalations are what you are looking for. But, keep in mind, that the time defined here is not based on when the user accepts the task, but on the time of assignment.
docs.appian.com/.../Process_Node_and_Smart_Service_Properties.html
as Stefan has said, there is a limitation with Appian out of the box tasks, and there is an option to potentially use "database tasks" where a data model could be used instead. This is where you write to a database table (A Record) the task details and present this to the user in an interface instead of the task list from a process.
HOWEVER!! :) ... this comes with an overhead of development time and significant testing and so on so not something I would advise unless the requirements absolutely can not be met with Appian OOB task setup.
Hi Stefan Helzle (stefanhelzle0001),
I tried implementing Escalation.1. In the Timer Event Setup tab, I have set 1 hour in the timer escalate activation.2. In the Timer Condition, I have given the below expression, if the tp!owner is not null which means the task is accepted & idle (not taken any action).
3. In What action should be taken? I have chosen Reassign task to: and I am providing the group name to which I want to reassign the task.
The escalation is not getting triggered when the task is accepted. Is there anything else I need to check/configure? Is the expression to identify if the task is accepted & idle is ok? Please let me know your thoughts.
I am not sure whether this would work. The general issue is, that this timer starts with the assignment, but not with the acceptance.
Peter Lewis , can you help us out with this? I do not want to spread any myths here.
I'm not sure that we can achieve this within the task settings directly, for specifically referencing task acceptance time. As Stefan notes, escalations and exceptions are based on task assignment time.
You could potentially solve this with a side flow in the process model that checks a Task Report, one of the data points available is Net Work Time (=NetWork()), which will show the elapsed time between acceptance and current time for active tasks. Some side path would have to check this report for the specific task regularly, and restart the task once the NetWork time grows out of your range.
https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/25.1/Process_and_Report_Data.html#task-metrics
This is from an Active Tasks Report, you can see the rows are blank where the task is not yet accepted:
I have done this before (though a long time ago) - it's complex enough that it should probably only be implemented when the need is critical (or the dev is super bored), but it does work.