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Task Templates are used to schedule yourself in reminders to complete a Task in the future, such as:

Obtaining copies of updated licenses and certificates.
Completing employee reviews
Checking FairWork for award or pay updates

Task Templates can be created as a once off instance, a recurring task and has the ability to be escalated if not actioned.

When assigning to a staff member, email address or escalation point, your tasks will be sent as an email with the ability to mark them as complete.

In this article we'll be going through:

Elements task template creation
Workflow of setting up a task template
How to create a task (with/without template)
How to action a task when due

If you're experiencing difficulties following these steps or have any additional questions, please don't hesitate to Helpdesk

Task Elements

When setting up a Task Template or creating a task as a once-off occurrence, the fields in the form are near identical - keep a close eye on what you're doing!

The main difference is when using a template to create a task information will be pre-filled based on the Task Template, whereas creating a once-off Task will require you to fill each field out.

Below we'll be discussing each element of the task form and its behavior.

Task Templates

1. Task Name: Give your task template an easily identifiable name.

2. Description: Provide a brief description of what is required of this task. This is important so whomever the task will be allocated to understands the requirements.

3. Task Due: Select a default due date for days/months after the Task is created. When creating a Task from this template, it will automate the due date according to your selection rather than specifying an actual date.

4. Assign To: You can choose who to assign this to, whether or not they are a Wageloch user or Staff member - it only requires a name and email address. This will provide the ability to Complete assigned tasks.

5. Send Notification: Choose when to send the first notification of a new task to be actioned.

6. Reminders: Send notifications every __ days before the due date and after the task is created, and send reminder notifications every __ days when overdue.

Escalation

Enable Escalation: Choose if you would like to escalate the task.

Escalate Before Due Date: If the task has not been marked complete within ___ days of due date, it will notify the Escalate To contact.

Escalate To: Select the recipient of the escalation; this can be a Wageloch user, staff member or someone external to the system. Enter/select the name of the escalation point and their email address (only required if non-staff member)

Recurring

Set as recurring: Would you like to set this task to repeat on a regular basis?

Recur Every: Select how often you would like the task to recur; Daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, annually, Nth_X_of_month (set day each month).

Set Repeat: You can then pick when the repeat occurs based on your selection; Weekly or Fortnightly on a specific day, Monthly or Annually on a specific date, Nth_X_of_month to specify the 3rd Monday of every month for example.

Create Task Template

Now that we've learned about the different fields available in a Task Template, let's create our first template!

Example:

We need to set a task up for our store manager Amy Adams
Amy needs to conduct annual reviews for staff members with surnames beginning with letters A through to E.
We want to give Amy enough notice of the due date of this task.
If Amy doesn't mark this task as complete, we need to escalate to the retail manager Jim Bob.
Our task will repeat each year on the 3rd of February.

Following the layout of the template fields, we can easily build our template based on the example information provided.

1. Task Name: We've called our task template Annual Staff Reviews. This name is clear and obvious to anyone who sees this task.

2. Description: We have briefly described the action; anyone with a surname that begins with the letters A, B, C, D, E will require an annual review.

3. Task Due: Our due date will be set 2 months after we create the task using this template. If I create the task today (7th September), the due date will automatically set for 2 months from now (2nd November).

4. Assign To: Amy is a store manager who has rosters and timesheets created in Wageloch, as such she is a staff member. When Staff Member is selected, we can pick who to assign the task to from the existing Wageloch staff list.

5. Send Notification: When the task is created (7th September) Amy will receive her first task notification tomorrow (8th September).

6. Reminders: We're going to send Amy reminder notifications every 5 days leading up to the due date if she's not marked the task as complete; when the task is overdue she'll be reminded daily to complete the task.

Enable Escalation: We've enabled our Annual Reviews task to escalate if Amy has not marked the task complete.

Escalate Before Due Date: If Amy hasn't marked the task as complete 7 days before the due date, our escalation notification will be sent to our Escalate To contact.

Escalate To: Our retail manager Jim Bob has been nominated as our escalation point. Jim Bob is not a staff member in Wageloch, so we're entering his details manually.

Set as recurring: We've enabled this template as a recurring task.

Recur Every: This task will recur annually.

Set Repeat: The task will appear on February 3rd each year and commence sending notifications.

Create New Task

Creating a task is pretty straight forward, we just need to determine if we're going to use an existing Task Template, or create this as a once off task.

Below we'll learn how to create a task through both methods - you'll likely notice they're fairly similar.

Click on the Task icon in the top right corner.
In the Tasks screen you'll see:
- Any Incomplete tasks waiting to be actioned, indicated by the Incomplete drop menu in the top right.
- A Search bar to look for a particular task.
- A drop menu filter to see tasks that are Incomplete, Complete or All.
  - TIP: Feel free to change between List and Grid view to change the layout of the Tasks screen.

From Task Template

Click New Task +
When your New Task window appears, click Create Task from Template.
Select the name of your template: Annual Staff Review.
You'll notice this will pre-fill some information based on the template we created.

Task Details

Due Date: We can now opt to set a new due date or leave the existing one as is, as our template was set for 2 months from task creation date..
Assign To: As per the template, Amy is selected to receive notifications about these annual reviews. We can change this if need be.
Notify On: Set your desired start for Amy to start receiving notifications.
Notify Every: 5 days when not marked as complete, and 1 day if task is overdue.

Escalation
As per our template, we have escalation enabled which will notify our retail manager Jim Bob 7 days before the due date. We can edit this if the escalation point has changed.

Recurring
Our template has pre-filled this area to confirm this is recurring annually on the 3rd of February - again we can edit this if needed.

Once you've checked all the information in your task, click the Tick in the bottom right corner to create your task.
This will now send an email to your Assign To contact to advise they have a task to complete.

Once Off Creation

Click New Task +
When your New Task window appears, you can start filling out the fields as needed.

Task Details

Due Date: Select the due date of your task.
Assign To: Enter the details of the person to complete the task, or assign it to a staff member within Wageloch.
Notify On: Select the date notifications will commence emailing.
Notify Every: Choose how often notifications will be emailed when the task is not complete, and how often they'll occur when the task is overdue.

Escalation
Choose whether you'd like to enable escalation, how soon before the due date the notifications will escalate and who they will escalate to.

Recurring
Opt to make this new task ongoing and how often/when it will repeat.

Once you've checked all the information in your task, click the Tick in the bottom right corner to create your task.
This will now send an email to your Assign To contact to advise they have a task to complete.

Actioning Tasks

When assigning a task to an Email Address or Staff Member, an email will always be sent to the person you've nominated.

Within the email the recipient will be provided the following information:

Task Name
Description of the task requirements
Mark as Complete button

When the task has been done, Mark as Complete should be clicked.

This will stop any additional notification emails or escalation from occurring and change the status of the task in Wageloch from Incomplete to Complete.