Escalations and action groups
You use the Escalations application to create escalation records. An escalation is a mechanism for monitoring time-sensitive records. Escalations can take actions or send notifications when a record reaches a defined escalation point. Your Workflow administrator can specify that a task assignment has a time limit. If the assignment is not completed within the specified time limit, an escalation can be triggered for the record. Escalations help to get tasks completed on time and help to prevent work backlogs.
Standard escalations do not exist. Your administrator creates custom escalation records that trigger a variety of actions and notifications. For example, an escalation might approve or cancel a record, or reassign a task assignment. An escalation might generate a reminder notification to the assignee regarding the task assignment, or send a notification to a supervisor that the assignee did not complete the assignment yet.
- WFASSIGNMENT
- WFASSIGNMENT is an object associated with workflow task assignments. You can create escalations that monitor whether an assignee completes a task assignment within the specified time limit. If the task is not completed within the time limit, WFASSIGNMENT can trigger one or more actions. For example, by reassigning the task to a work group or by generating notifications to the supervisor.
- WFINSTANCE
- WFINSTANCE is an object associated with active instances of workflow processes. You can create escalations to monitor how long it takes a record to exit the control of a process. For example, if the process design includes one or more Wait nodes.
Action groups
An action group is a type of action record that includes multiple actions and a sequence to use when performing the actions. Escalations are always associated with action groups.
You can associate an action group with an escalation in either of the following ways:
- You can create action groups using the Actions application and then click Detail Menu next to the Action Group field on the Actions sub tab to associate the action group with the escalation.
- You can create action groups in the Escalations application by clicking New Row on the Actions sub tab. When you create an action group in the Escalations application, the action group receives a generated name. The actions receive assigned sequence numbers. The sequence numbers are based on the order in which you add the actions to the group.