Teams and handoffs

Letting Royak pick who does it#

In New task, leave Assigned to as “Picked for you when you create it”. Royak looks at your active employees’ roles, responsibilities and skills. If only one fits, it is assigned at once, at no cost. If several could, one short routing call decides, charged to your company’s usage; it runs on Royak’s servers, so you can leave the page.

If routing isn’t sure, nothing is assigned. The sheet says why and suggests someone: Assign to {name}, choose someone else, or Don’t assign it. Until you choose, it waits in the Inbox as Task to assign. The task’s record later says “Routing picked {name}: {reason}”.

Changed your mind? Before work starts, Reassign to in the task’s record moves it to another active employee.

Handoffs: one task starts with another’s work#

When a task needs another’s result, set Starts to After a task and pick it: “Waits until that task is done, then starts with its deliverable.” From the employee inspector it is Starts after. Goal and team plans make these links for you.

1. 1

   The task waits

   Its status reads Waiting and its progress “After KS-140”. Nothing runs or is charged.

2. 2

   The earlier task finishes

   Its deliverable is handed over: on the Office floor a chip naming it travels from one desk to the other, and the Inbox records “Peter handed “October invoices” to Nadia, whose task started with it.”

3. 3

   The next task starts

   On its own, with the earlier deliverable as part of its input.

Work’s Dependencies view draws these links as a graph, arrows pointing from the earlier work.

Team tasks#

A manager can take a task as a team: they plan it into parts for their reports, each report does a part, the manager reviews each part, then combines the accepted work into one deliverable and reviews that too.

1. 1

   Open the manager’s Assign task

   Select the manager, such as Viktor Stoyanov, Marketing lead, and choose Assign task. Start from offers the Launch campaign (team) template, which fills the title, brief and sections.

2. 2

   Make it a team task

   Tick Do it as a team with N reports. Optionally list Required sections, the headings the final deliverable must have.

3. 3

   Choose whether to check the plan

   Tick Let me check the plan before the team starts to see the plan before any part runs.

4. 4

   Assign

   The manager plans two to four parts in one call on their model (one part when they have a single report). Parts can depend on each other.

Each part is an ordinary task of its employee, with their own access, limits and approvals, and its own record and controls. In the team task’s record, Team plan shows the manager’s summary, “2 of 3 parts done” and each part (T1, T2…) with its employee, what it waits for and its latest verdict. The final deliverable ends with a Contributions list.

Checking a team’s plan first#

With the plan check on, the task reads Plan waits for you and the Inbox lists it as Team plan. Its record lists each part with its brief: “Nothing runs until you accept it.” Accept the plan creates the parts and starts them.

Or set a Test budget and Step-test this plan: the parts run one at a time as tests and pause at every handoff, so you can see each result before the next starts. Its calls are paid from the test budget, it never sends anything to your apps, and its tasks don’t show as real work in the Office or the Inbox.

Manager review#

Each verdict reads Accepted or Returned, “by {manager}”, “by the platform’s checks” or “by you, as it was”, with the reasons. Returned work goes back to its author as a revision with those reasons, at most twice.

After that the task reads Needs decision and waits for you: Accept as it is, ask for a revision of the part or the whole, or cancel. The same happens to a task held to a skill’s checks; see Skills.

Asking for a revision#

1. 1

   Open the task’s record

   Once no run is open and it has a deliverable, choose Request revision.

2. 2

   Write your feedback

   Say what to change, as you would to a colleague. The sheet shows how many of the three revisions are left.

3. 3

   Optionally make it a rule

   Tick Also propose a standing rule for {name} to turn the feedback into a lasting instruction; edit its wording under Standing rule.

4. 4

   Send

   Send for revision. The same employee does the work again with your feedback.

The result is the deliverable’s next version; earlier versions stay in Artifacts. If a revision fails, the earlier deliverable is kept. If it barely differs (only formatting or labels), the record says so. A task allows three revisions.

Standing rules from your feedback#

A rule you proposed shows under Revisions with Approve rule and Reject rule, and waits in the Inbox. Approved, it is added to the employee’s instructions as a new version: “Their next task uses it.” Rejected, it applied to that one revision only. See Standing rules.

Questions#