Analyzing Simple Tasks

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to describe different task types, notifications and phases.

Describing a Task

  • Something that needs to be done
    • By a specific person
    • By a specific time
  • Can be part of phases
  • Can be optional or required
  • Can contain predecessor
    • Task/Phase cannot be started until all predecessor tasks have been completed

What is a task?

A task is an action assigned to a user to be completed, such as completing a form or reviewing or approving a document. Projects can be created with a default set of tasks that are defined in the project template. When a user is assigned a task, the system:

  • Adds the task to the user's My Tasks page.
  • Adds the task to the user’s calendar. The task status can indicate an action required by the user.
  • Sends an email notification to the user.
  • If a task has a due date or end date specified, SAP Ariba also adds the task to the user’s To Do portlet.

By default, SAP Ariba also sends an email notification to the user who created or submitted the task.

Phases

You can place tasks into phases to help you organize them. You can quickly view the status of each phase within the Process content area in the full view of a project. Phases enable you to:

  • Organize tasks into phases that match your business model.
  • Specify task due dates relative to the start of the parent phase for a task instead of a fixed date. This enables you to establish task start dates when you create a project or project template.
  • Enforce workflow order. You can specify predecessors for phases so that users are unable to start tasks in a phase until the predecessor phase or task is complete.

When all required tasks in a phase are completed, SAP Ariba automatically marks that phase as completed by default.

Differentiating Task Types

The types of tasks in SAP Ariba are To Do Tasks, Document To Do Tasks, Review Tasks, Approval Tasks, Negotiation Tasks, and Notification Tasks.

Document To Do

A To Do Task requires the task owner to do something, like set up a meeting.

A Document To Do Task is a To Do Task that is associated with a particular document or folder. For example, if you have a form that needs to be completed by a particular team member, you could assign a To Do task directly from the document. If there are several forms, you could put them in a folder and assign the Document To Do task from the folder.

Review and Approval

Review Tasks and Approval Tasks are designed to route a particular document for other users to review or approve. Document reviewers can submit comments, while approvers have the authority to approve or deny a document with comments. These tasks are used to make sure the proper users have signed off on critical contract documents before they are published.

Negotiation

A Negotiation Task is designed to capture the negotiations between two or more parties concerning a contract, or any other type of document. It captures the comments from the negotiating parties as well as the changes in the document.

Notification

A Notification Task is used to send email reminders to recipients. It is used primarily after the contract is published to remind users to take some action, such as check contract activity or market pricing periodically, reminders can be set up to be sent once or repeatedly on a scheduled basis.

Working with Template Tasks

  • Similar to creating tasks in projects
  • Used to centralize business process
  • Require certain actions (reviews, approvals, etc.) every time a project is created using that template
  • Design a concise workflow to ensure user adoption. Keep process under 10 tasks and focus on milestones, reviews, and approvals
  • Add owners and observers to simplify end user process
  • Create approval rules
  • Create and Manage Notification Profiles

Setting up tasks at the template level as an administrator is one of the best ways to ensure your organization’s process is being followed each and every time a project is created.

The process is similar to creating tasks in projects, but there are a few additional options to allow a more general set up of a task so that it can apply to many projects created using that template. For example, if you make a task required in a template, end users are unable to edit the task and make it not required in a project. Since these tasks are required at the template level, users are unable to complete their projects until those tasks are completed, thus ensuring compliance with business process.

The system also allows you to assign an owner to the tasks at the template level. This owner is often a project group rather than an individual user so when the members of that group move to another position, you will only need to remove that user from the group rather than update every template where that user may have been listed. By adding owners to tasks at the template level, the tasks are already assigned to the users who need to act on them, which means the person creating the project has more time to focus on the details of their particular project rather than setting the details of the project, since this has already been completed by the administrator.

Working with Additional Task Fields in Templates

Task TypeDescription
Should Auto-Start ScheduleSelect Yes for this setting if you would like the task to automatically begin based on certain dates or completion of certain tasks. Notification tasks only.
Allow Auto ApprovalUse this setting to specify whether or not approval tasks can be automatically completed by the Task Owner. For example, if the task owner submits an Approval Task, the task will automatically be approved without any reviewers. Approval tasks only.
Repeat for Each Document DraftThis setting controls whether or not a new round is started on a review, approval, or negotiation task when the document associated with the task has a change in version. Review, Approval, and Negotiation tasks only.
PredecessorsAllows you to specify the order in which tasks must be completed. When using predecessors, the predecessor task must be completed before the successor task can begin.

Using Task Fields in Templates

Task TypeDescription
MilestoneUse this setting to specify a particular task as a pivotal moment in all projects created using the template where a task is specified as a milestone.
Field SettingThe fields available for this are set by SAP Ariba Customer Support. Any field that is enabled with the setting Template Field Setter can be used. This allows the field value to be set when a task is completed within a project. By default, Process Status on Contract Workspaces is already configured this way.
RankUse this to specify the order in which tasks appear on the Tasks tab. This option is not frequently used as the tasks will appear in the order they are added to the Tasks tab.

Creating Notification Profiles

  • Notification profiles specify when task-related notifications are sent and the recipients for the notifications.
  • Parameters do not override preferences configured for individual users that disable email notification.
  • Notification profiles are created within a template that can be selected for use by any task in that template or in project created from the template.
  • Custom profiles on a per-task basis in projects may also be created.

Notification Profiles

While Notification Profiles are visible within Tasks and the project level, they cannot be created, edited, or assigned to tasks at the project level. Template administrators will be able to create, define, and assign notification profiles within each template.

You can access the Notification Profile area in a template by navigating to the Tasks tab. From the Tasks tab, click Actions → Notification Profiles. This will take you to the Notification Profiles screen where you can select an existing notification profile and then click Edit or Delete or you can click New to create a brand new notification profile.

The following settings are available within a notification profile:

Send pending notification ____ day(s) before due date to _____

Send reminders every ____ day(s) thereafter

Send overdue notification ____ day(s) after due date to ____

Send reminders every ____ day(s) thereafter

Send task complete notification to _____

The blanks represent values that you as the administrator can select.

For example, the first setting might read: Send pending notification 7 days before the due date to Task Owner.

Creating Phases

The Phase section is highlighted on the Template page.
  1. On the Tasks tab of the project, click Actions → Create → Phase.
  2. SAP Ariba opens a Create Phase page. Enter a title for the phase.

    Provide a description for this new phase. You can view this description by clicking the phase in the Tasks tab of a project and choosing View Details.

    Use Subscribe For to choose associated keywords. When this phase is active, SAP Ariba will display knowledge projects that are published with the specified keywords in the Related Knowledge portlet.

    Use Display After to choose the position of this phase in the list of phases and tasks. To change the ordering of phases and tasks, you can drag and drop them on the Tasks tab.

    If this phase (and the tasks in it) are going to occur in the project more than once, set Recurring Schedule to Yes and set the values for the Recurrence Pattern fields (the Recurrence Pattern fields are not shown if Recurring Schedule is No). See Recurring Phases for more information about recurring phases.

    Specify any predecessors. These phases or tasks must be completed before the current task can start. See Predecessor Phases for details.

  3. Click OK.
The Create Phase page is displayed.

Editing a Task

Click the task link and from the pop-up menu, select Edit Task. You can set up the due date based on the number of days after parent phase starts.

Click OK. If a task is not completed before its due date, the task becomes overdue and the system sends reminder notifications.

The Due Date field is highlighted on the Edit To Do Task page.

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