How does your organization handle action items that are never responded to?

[Legacy User]

Do you send reminders?  How?  Do you use the escalation feature?  Do you automatically close the action item and related request/object after a set time period? 

 

There doesn't seem to be an easy out of the box way to handle this, so I'm thinking our process will need to add a post condition step to send an email reminder via gel script after a specific number of days.  Then after another certain number of days send another gel email that the request is being cancelled and close the action item and related object systematically.  We don't want to use the escalation feature because we want to be able to send to the recipient of the action item, and this isn't an option in 13.2.  Is this a feature in later versions?

 

But I was thinking all the smart folks on the community might have some other ways they've handled it too.  Any good ideas out there?

[suhail-sayed]

Hello Amy,

 

When we send an Action Item, we also generate an email to the user with the link to the Action Item. If in case the Action Item does not get approved or rejected within the necessary timeline, it automatically gets rejected by the process and the Action Item is no longer present within the My Action Items Portlet. You may send an email notification to the owner of the Action Item as well when the Action Item goes to the user, similarly when the user approves or rejects the Action Item. And, if in case the Action Item is not approved or rejected within the relevant timeline and finally, gets automatically rejected, the owner of the Action Item gets an email notification again about this. So, this will help the owner to know if the Action Item was approved or rejected by the user or gets automatically rejected by the process. We have not really sent reminders for pending Action Items, but, you can see if this is really required as there already will be a previous Action Item that has still not been attended by the user and can create a confusion. May be an email reminder with the link to the Action Item would help.

 

Suhail.

[Legacy User]

Thank you for your feedback Suhail!  Can I ask what is the timeline you use before automatically rejecting the action item?

[suhail-sayed]

Hello Amy,

 

The timeline we use could be anything between a week and two weeks, depending on the requirement. You need to make sure that the user is not out-of-office on leaves if he or she is unable to approve or reject the Action Item within the necessary deadline. So, somewhere around 10 days should be an okay time period for getting the Action Item either approved or rejected before automatically rejecting it by the process.

 

Suhail.

[mike2.2]

Do not forget that an action item can only be edited/modified by the originator, so if the originator leaves and the recipient does nothing, it just sits there.  Something should be put in place in the event the originator leaves.

[Legacy User]

Michael - does this apply to process-generated action items too?

[Legacy User]

Good points Suhail!  Thanks