Using the K2 Worklist
The K2 Worklist displays a list of the work items (tasks) currently assigned to you. You can view and action tasks, open the View Flow report for tasks, filter and search your tasks, and configure your Out of Office settings.
You can access the K2 Worklist in one of two ways:
- from the Portal page, which displays your K2 Worklist after you add a K2 Worklist Web Part .
- in the K2 ribbon of a SharePoint app
Example of the worklist web part
You can open the form associated with a K2 Worklist task for viewing, editing, or completing an action.
- From the Portal page, open the action menu next to a K2 Worklist task.
- From the action item menu, click the Open Form icon.
- View or edit the form as required. (The form shown below utilizes the Workflow panel to complete the workflow task. Your form may look different, depending on how the form was designed by the application creator).
- Click Save to save any changes made to the form.
- In the workflow panel on the form, select an action from the Select Action drop-down menu and click Submit, otherwise click Cancel to close the form without completing the task.
A blue circular icon indicates that a task item's status is Available. When in Available state, a work item can be opened and processed by all users who have that item in their worklists. Hover your mouse over the blue icon to display the status.
- In the K2 Worklist Web Part, open the action menu next to a task.
- Click an appropriate action to complete the task. In the example below, the available completion actions for this task are Approved or Declined. (The actions shown will depend on the workflow design and whether the actions were configured to be available without having to open the associated task form for the task).
You can complete multiple tasks at the same time using the batch action feature.
- On the top right-hand side of the worklist, click the multi-select icon to display selection boxes next to each work item in your K2 Worklist.
- Use the check boxes to select the work items that you want to select, or check the very top box to automatically select all tasks in your K2 Worklist.
- Open the action menu for a selected Item and select the common action you wish to perform on all the checked items.
You can share a task from your K2 Worklist with other users. For example, if Department A has a backlog of work to process and Department B is assisting to reduce the backlog; then Department A shares their K2 Worklist items with members of Department B. The original user continues to own the shared item and can still complete the task.
A shared work item appears in both users' K2 Worklist. When any one of the users completes the task, the task will automatically be removed from the second user's Worklist.
- In the K2 Worklist Web Part, open the action menu next to a task.
- On the action item menu, click the Share icon.
- Click the Add link to add one or more users to share the task with (after you add a user, you can remove that user using the Remove link).
- Enter the name of the person that you want to share your task with in the Search box and click the magnifying glass icon.
- Click to select one or more users that will share your task, making sure that the selected names are highlighted.
- Click OK. The task is shared with the person or persons that you selected.
To refine your search, click the downward triangle preceding the Search box and select to limit your search by match option or security label. When searching for a user with a security label other than Azure Active Directory (AAD), all the Match filters will be available for use. If the security label is AAD, only the Begins With filter will be available.
You can redirect a task to another person, which will remove the task from your K2 Worklist. For example, if you are responsible for Department A tasks and accidentally receive a task for Department B; you can redirect that task to the correct person in Department B.
- In the K2 Worklist Web Part, open the action menu next to a K2 Worklist task.
- On the action item menu, click the Redirect icon.
- Type the full or partial name of the person that you want to redirect your task to in the Search box and click the magnifying glass icon.
- Click to select the person that will receive your task.
- Click OK. The task is removed from your K2 Worklist and redirected to the person that you selected.
To refine your search, click the downward triangle preceding the Search box and select to limit your search by match option or security label. When searching for a user with a security label other than Azure Active Directory (AAD), all the Match filters will be available for use. If the security label is AAD, only the Begins With filter will be available.
If you have opened a task but did not complete it, you can release the task to make it available to other task recipients again. Releasing a task returns the task to available status.
- In the K2 Worklist Web Part, open the action menu next to a K2 Worklist task.
- On the action menu, click the Release icon.
(The Release icon is only available if the task is assigned to multiple recipients or was shared with another person.)
- The task is released and is available for other recipients to open.
You can delay acting on a task in your Worklist until a later date. Choose to delay acting on a task until a preselected time (Basic) or a date that you specify (Date) occurs. For example, if your schedule prevents you from completing tasks until the next day, you can choose to delay your action until the following morning or afternoon.
- In the K2 Worklist Web Part, open the action menu next to a K2 Worklist task.
- On the action menu, click the Sleep icon.
- To set up a Basic sleep option, click the Basic radio button followed by the radio button for your selected basic option.
- Breakfast tomorrow – The item is paused until 8 AM the following day.
- Lunch tomorrow – The item is paused until 1 PM the following day.
- In a week from now – The item is paused until 8 AM the following week.
- To set up a custom Date sleep option, click the Date radio button and enter a date in the "Start Date" box or click the calendar icon to select a date.
- Click OK. The task is removed from your K2 Worklist and delayed until the selected sleep interval has passed.
Where:
You can refine a K2 Worklist to only display the workflow items that you need to see by using the search and filter functions. For example you might only want to see all the expense claims needing approval at the end of a month. By selecting the search icon, you can display only the workflow items that match your search request.
For example, the following figure shows a quick search for visible fields that contain the word "West." Clicking the arrow next to "Search" enables or disables a "Match" search refinement option to further limit your results. For example, selecting "Begins With" instead of "Contains" limits the results to only workflow items that begin with "West".
By selecting the filter icon, you can modify the default filter and sorting parameters for your worklist.
Selecting the Filters tab allows you to customize the information that displays in your worklist .You can configure multiple filters by using the Add button. When changing the filter, the filter is only valid for the duration of your current browser session. For example, if you open another browser session you will need to configure the filter again.
Selecting the Sorting tab allows you to customize the order that items display in your worklist. You can configure multiple sorting options by using the Add button.
Although the default filter and sorting options work well for most applications, you have the ability to customize those options to best fit your specific business application.
When applying a filter to the Worklist at runtime, the filter overrides the one created in design time and persists per user.
Sort items according to status by clicking on the arrow. Available items display with a blue icon and open items have no icon.
Use the View Flow page to view where your task is in the workflow and the various routes it can go before the workflow completes.
- In the K2 Worklist App Part, open the action menu next to a K2 Worklist task.
- Click View Flow from the action menu.
- From the View Flow page, click a tab to display different workflow views:
- Workflow tab - displays the workflow steps. You can click on completed areas for details about the workflow including participants, steps in the process, and other data.
- Comments tab - a list of the comments associated with this process instance.
- Attachments tab - displays a list of the attachments associated with this process instance.
- Charts tab - displays a bar graph or a pie chart of the workflow activities. You can click the colored areas of the chart for more details about the workflow.
- To interpret a View Flow diagram, remember:
- Line Rules that evaluated true and were successful are colored green
- Line Rules that evaluated false and were not successful are colored red
- Skipped lines or not yet evaluated lines are gray
- Green workflow steps indicate that the step was successful
- Blue workflow steps indicate that the activity has started, and is in an Active or Running state
- White workflow steps indicate that the step has not yet been executed
- Blue events with red exclamation marks indicate that the event is currently in an error state
- Click the workflow Start step to view the Process Instance Detail report for the entire workflow.
See the Process Instance Detail section for more information.
. - Click a workflow step to view the Activity Instance Detail report for that step.
See the Activity Instance Detail section for more information.
Out of Office settings can be configured using the Out of Office icon in the K2 Worklist control.
For more information of configuring Out of Office using the K2 Worklist control see Out of Office.
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 Notifications
Disabling this notification requires a change to the K2HostServer.exe.config file.
- Open the K2HostServer.exe.config file from the following location: "%ProgramFiles%\ K2\ 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.
Example
The 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 form, 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 by responding to the notification or opening the task from their K2 Worklist.
Dennis's
Eric's
Holly's