Using Universal task to involve non IT user in a Service request flow

[Fred Jean]

Hello,

We have a need where a catalog item should trigger a (work)flow involving a number of steps and users including non IT users.

HR or legal users should be involved to perform some tasks or provide input at some stage. Obviously for that we would not want to use Service Operation Workspace nor build a new custom workspace. We are on an ITSM platform with Employee Center (No HRSD).

So I thought that could be a good opportunity to make use of Universal tasks.

Thus I have installed the plug in and done a few basic tests. Here are my findings :

Pros :

- enables to assign tasks to users on the Employee center portal

- tasks can actually be shown on the ESC OotB (once assigned to a user and state is work in progress)

Cons :

- Requires some minimal configuration to be useable

- When you use the complete button on a "Mark when complete" tasks, the task is actually closed (which is good) but when you submit the form of a "provide input" tasks, the task is not closed, you can submit it several times. Why ? How it that supposed to work ?

- when you submit that "provide input" tasks, I don"t see the provided input on the OotB form of the Universal task or RITM either on the Workspace or Core UI

- Tasks must actually be assigned to the user to be visible on the ESC (we would like it to work with groups also)

- Task are only visible on ESC once state is "Work in progress" (seems counter intuitive to me as the task is not actually in progress yet until taken/open by the user)

- Tasks on the ESC don't show the related task they are attached to (I created Universal task for a RITM and then have no information or link on the RITM on the ESC form)

Would you have suggestion on how to work around these issues while staying OotB as much as possible ?

Or would you think Universal tasks is not the right option for this use case ?

One important point would be to be able to see and work on tasks assigned to a group (not a user). For this I thought may be we could implement a custom widget similar to "My items" but taking the group into account.

[jMarshal]

What license are you assigning these employees? -- it seems like you are not assigning a fulfiller role to them (you mention that you only subscribe to ITSM).

The "provide input" tasks are more of a way to conveniently get comments on an existing requested item, not actually take an action on a task (adjust status, reassign, etc.) -- If you want them to adjust fields on tasks beyond the comments (like status fields) or be assigned  tasks that are actionable (besides the non-actionable "provide input" ones), you need to give them a fulfiller license (itil, for instance).

[Fred Jean]

Licence is another question (but not necessarily an issue). I don't think we should/would need fulfiller; was wondering about stakeholder though.
Requesting comments or additional input or requesting action (with task type "Mark when complete") is actually what we need, we don't expect them to adjust fields on the RITM or tasks (but still to know the context of these Universal tasks, information about the related RITM is needed).

[jMarshal]

I suppose I could be wrong, you'd need to speak with your specific sales/account rep at ServiceNow...but I'm pretty sure that you do need a platform fulfiller license to adjust fields (beyond "comments") on an assignable task record or have that task record assigned to a user.

Business Stakeholder will allows you view-only access to all ITSM records, approval access as well as some specific PA access...but I think that's it. Installed with Business Stakeholder (servicenow.com)

...so if you are only looking to view and add comments to RITM records which are "requested for" a different user, a business stakeholder would be able to do that OOB...but I still do not think it would accomplish your goal (if this is your end goal) of "closing" the "provide information" tasks in EC.

ServiceNow also offers webinars with product experts and you may want to sign up for one related to Employee Centre and/or Universal Request. When it comes to Employee Centre specifically, I have been working with @SmritiGupta (smriti.gupta@servicenow.com) who is an outbound product manager for EC and this series has been very helpful!

[Fred Jean]

Thanks for your feedback, but again I don't think we need ability to "adjust" fields on taks; using the Universal task with "provide input" type is something different that I believe is meant for end users. But anyway if a fulfiller licence is needed may be we can have it.

My concerns are more about the usability of Universal tasks (not Universal Requests) for our purpose. There isn't much material on this.