About Tracking Cases and Tasks
When it comes to tracking work to determine who is working on issues and what is the status, you can use:
- Cases and tasks
- Only cases
- Or only tasks
What Are Cases?
If you use cases and tasks, then the case is your top-level project, and related tasks are the individual items that need to be completed for the project. In this scenario, a task is a child of the parent case. If you only use cases, then all work is tracked and assigned within the case. If you only use tasks, then any all work is tracked and assigned within the task.
For example, to onboard a new employee you could create a case and set the manager as the Assigned To person. Then you would create tasks that make up the project to include processing an I-9 form, setting up the employee benefits plan, and establishing the employee portal credentials. Each task can be worked on concurrently by different team members. This approach helps to delegate the work so that you can streamline the process.
What Are Tasks?
Tasks track individual work items – they can stand on their own or can be a child to a parent case. Tasks are the work items that need to be completed by the Assigned To person. When tasks are a child to a case, then the task can be assigned to the person who owns the case (owns the project) or could be assigned to someone else. Tasks can be standalone or can be subsets to a case.
Tasks are configurable assignment items with an Owner and Assigned To person and defined start and end dates. Tasks are standalone items of work. If you only use tasks with no parent case, then each task needs adequate information to convey what is expected of the Assigned To person. Additionally, if you use tasks only, then you must track each task to ensure that all work items are completed. That is why it may make more sense to create a case and then add tasks for the individual work items. When you have a parent and child relationship, it is easier to monitor the progress of the overall project.
In the scenario of an employee termination, we create a case and then create tasks for the work that must occur, such as payroll and benefits tasks. For example, terminated employees must be closed out of the payroll system, and someone must ensure that the employee receives Cobra information. These items are more suited to tasks – they are part of a larger project, the employee termination case.
If we use a case for the individual pieces of work, we would have to move the case from person to person and reassign the case. With tasks, we can have individual work being performed concurrently for payroll, benefits, risk, and other types of actions – all tracked through the one central location: the case.
Tasks can be:
- Related to a case. This is a parent and child relationship.
- Linked to a workspace.
- Linked to an associated dataform.