Getting a handle on your business processes requires knowledge of the process and how the process is handled in the everyday world. We have found that real-world and recorded processes can sometimes be different. Documenting both can help you understand how a process is really handled in your company.
How Can Issuetrak Help?
Let’s start with the process itself. Each step in the process is going to be represented in Issuetrak by a Task. A Task can be assigned to any person or group of users that have been granted permission to work with Tasks. Any user in Issuetrak can be granted permission to work with Tasks.
An issue Task is a single work step or instruction that is normally assigned to a user or a group. A Task Group is a collection of individual Tasks that can be assigned to an issue by assigning the Task Group to the issue.
Task Groups link Tasks together, to represent multiple steps in your process. Within each individual Task, you have the ability to trigger the addition of additional Task Groups, depending on the answer to a Yes/No/NA question.
What does that mean in regular language? When the steps of your process come to a decision point, you have the ability to add in additional steps, depending on what’s needed. A real-life example might be an employee onboarding process. This has many steps that cross over multiple departments and teams. If the employee needs pieces of hardware, then certain steps need to be completed by the IT team, but if not, those steps aren’t needed. Or perhaps an employee is part-time, so they need different paperwork done by the HR team.
Once you have your process defined and Task Groups created, how do you use them? A Task Group can be added to any issue at any time. However, a more efficient way is to build a Issue Template to launch your process. Within Issuetrak, a Issue Template is an issue submission template. You can create as many Issue Templates as needed with fields pre-filled, or prompting for information.
Additionally, Issue Templates can have tasks already included to kick off a process. That way, every time someone uses that Issue Template, the first task automatically populates. Then, as tasks are completed, any branching options triggering additional task groups cause the proper tasks to populate into the issue.
Managing Your Process
Normally, the person ultimately responsible for managing the process is assigned to the issue. Using the Issue Template, you can fill out the assignment value. Perhaps the manager of the process changes based on the submitting department or issue subtype. Using auto-assignment rules, you can determine who gets assigned to the issues based on your criteria.
Issuetrak Tasks, when set to have a Yes/No/NA response also give you the ability to set the substatus value, which defines where the issue is in its lifecycle. This lets you run reports or view the issue using different criteria on the Dashboard. You can also use a Yes/No/NA value to trigger the cancellation of all remaining tasks and the close of the issue.
All of these options help you manage exactly where your processes are at any given time. You can set up Issuetrak to handle as many processes as needed. And if you need help, our team of Professional Services consultants can help you break down your steps and advise you on the best way to implement your process and workflow management within your Issuetrak site.
The goal of Issuetrak consulting is to make sure you get the most out of your Issuetrak implementation. Because your company is unique, your account manager can discuss which consulting options will work best for you. Or you can reach out directly to the Professional Services team.
