Setting Out of Office

When configuring K2 Out of Office it is necessary to assign destination users who will receive the shared worklist items. The destination users can be set by you, the administrator or manager. Your availability can be determined by the Out of Office icon displayed next to the your name in the worklist.

1. From the K2 Workspace Worklist locate the Configuration icon.



2. Click the Out of Office tab.




The table below explains the available fields:

Feature	Description	Sample Value
In the Office	Select the radio button when you in the office. You can configure your out of office settings, but it will not be applied until the Out of Office option is selected.	Select the In the Office radio button.
Out of the Office	Select the radio button to display as out of office, worklist item sharing will commence according to the settings that you have set in the Out of Office Configuration tab.	Select the Out of the Office radio button and specify Forward all work items to and / or Exception Rules.
Forward all work items to	The list displays who will view and process the work items on your behalf while out of office. You can add and delete destination users (forwarded users) to and from this list. By adding a person to this list, all your worklist items will be shared with that person.	Click the Add button to search for and allocate people to the Forward All list. Click Delete to remove added users. Completion of this section is mandatory to enable sharing of the worklist items.
Exception Rules	The Exception rules enable you to create exception rules on forwarded work items. These rules are applied when you want to direct tasks of a particular event to specific people. While you out of office, any items meeting the exception rule criteria will be forwarded to those people specified in the exception rule only, while other tasks will be forwarded to the people listed in the main Out of Office (Forward all work items to) configuration.	Click Add to search for and allocate specific users to the Exception Rule. Click Edit to edit existing exception rules. Click Delete to remove added users.

3. Under the Forward all work items to section click Add.




The table below explains the available fields:

Feature	Description	Sample Value
User / Groups	Allows you to only search for available Users.	Default selection.
Search drop down menu	The drop down menu contains search related options to use within the search. Available options are: Starts With, Contains, Ends With and Equal To. The default value is Starts With.	Selectthe applicable search option from the drop down.
Search Text Box	Allows you to enter the search text string.	Enter required search text.
Search Label	The drop down menu contains security label related options to use within the search.	Select applicable security label option from the drop down
Domain	You can specify the domain you want to search in for a particular person or group.	Select the applicable domain from the drop down.
Search	The Search button takes into consideration all specified criteria and returns matching information.	Click Search to find the required or group.
Select All	Selects all users returned in the user search.	Click Select All to select all users returned in the user search.
Clear All	Clears all selected users.	Click Clear All to clear all selected users returned in the user search.

Example of completed Select users to add to the Forward All list screen.




4. Click OK to add people to the Forward all work items to list.



5. Under the Exception Rules section click Add.




The table below explains the available fields:

Feature	Description	Sample Value
Rule Name	Enter a descriptive name for the exception rule. When the rule is saved, this name will be used to identify the rule in the list. This is a required field.	Enter Exception Rule name into the Rule Name field. This action is mandatory.
Select applicable work item	This section displays all filters that can be applied. You can drill down to activity level.	Browse and select the work item to apply the exception rule to.
Select applicable users	This list will display the destination users the rule applies to.	Click Add to search for and allocate specific users to the Exception Rule. ClickEdit to edit existing Exception Rules. Click Delete to remove added users.

Example of completed Select users to add to the Forward All list screen.




6. Click OK to add rule to the Exception Rules.




In the Exception Rules section, more than one exception rule can be added. Multiple users can receive a specific process instance that is specified in the Exceptions Rules section.

7. After adding designated user and / or required exception rules click OK to activate the Out of Office settings. Notice the Out of Office icon that appears on your Worklist.



To interpret the Out of Office statuses the following applies:

• The icon is colored red when you Out of Office.
• The icon is colored green when you in the Office.

Out of Office Notifications

The Out of Office (OOF) Notification allows all forwarded users to receive an e-mail notification regarding delegated tasks when a specific user is out of office. Take note of the following considerations: The notification sent to the forwarded (delegated) users is not customizable. The notification is only sent to forwarded users if the task is sent while the original user's out of office setting is turned on. Disabling the Out of Office NotificationsDisabling this notification requires a change to the K2HostServer.exe.config file. Open the K2HostServer.exe.config file from the following location: <install drive>\ Program Files(x86)\ K2 blackpearl\ Host Server\ Bin\ Locate the following line in the K2HostServer.exe.config file:
<outOfOffice notificationsEnabled="True" /> Change the value from true to false as shown below:

The value is set to true by default.Save and Close the K2HostServer.exe.config file.Restart the K2 Service.ExampleThe following example illustrates the Out of Office functionality using a multiple approval step workflow for a Customer Onboarding process. A user’s tasks are delegated to multiple users when they are out of office.



When a new customer is created via a SmartForm, the workflow starts and the task is sent to the appropriate users in the first approval step. For this example the task is sent to Ashley.


Ashley receives an email notification that she has a new task. Since Ashley is currently out of the office, her tasks are forwarded to two other users, Barry and Codi. The figures below show all three email notifications sent by the K2 server.
Ashley's


Barry's

Codi's

The task is approved by Codi and she receives an approval email. The workflow moves to the second approval step containing an out of office exception rule that forwards the tasks to three other users. For the purpose of this example, the notifications are sent to Dennis, Eric and Holly via the exception rule. Any of the three forwarded users can action the task byresponding to the notification or opening the task from their K2 Worklist.

Dennis's


Eric's


Holly's

Scenario: The out of office user wants to redirect any Expense Claim Approval tasks to the Finance VP, but any other tasks should be directed to their peer.

Setup: The user would configure an out of office rule to share all tasks to their peer, but also add an exception rule to share any Expense Claim Approval tasks with the Finance VP.

Outcome: While the user's status is Out of Office, any Expense Claim Approval tasks would be directed to the Finance VP and all other tasks will be directed to their peer.

• To interpret the Out of Office statuses, the icon is colored red when you are out of office and the icon is colored green when you in the office.
• Existing and new K2 Worklist items are shared with a designated alternative as specified by the configured Out of Office settings.
• While a user is Out of Office, any items meeting the exception rule criteria will be forwarded to those users specified in the rule only, while all other tasks will be forwarded to the users listed in the main Out of Office configuration.
• The column called Original Destination on the K2 Worklist will allow users to differentiate between their own, and the out of office user's worklist items.
• The K2 Out of Office service can be configured either from within K2 Workspace, SharePoint or from SharePoint Process Portal.