Completing work in Workplace

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This topic is shared by BAW, CP4BA, CP4BASaaS. Last updated on 2025-03-13 12:15

From the start page, you can organize and work on your tasks, and also use workflows or cases to complete structured or unstructured work.

Working with tasks

Your task list includes all your assigned and claimed tasks and also the tasks that are assigned to the teams that you're a member of. From the list of available tasks that are assigned to your teams, you can claim the tasks that you want to work on. You can optimize your task list to meet your needs by using the following features.

Use the quick search to trigger a full-text search of your task list. For more information, see Basic searches in Workplace.
Use basic searches to customize your list view by scoping your search and building and combining filters to refine the results. Name and save your customized view for reuse or share it with other people or your team. You can rename your saved views by clicking the edit icon next to the saved view name. To share a saved view with another team, duplicate, rename, and share it. You can also set a saved view as the default page for your Workplace instance. For more information, see Basic searches in Workplace.
Use advanced searches to obtain refined results that cannot be achieved through basic searches. Advanced search helps combine filters, use keywords such as NOT, AND, and OR together, and consolidate multiple smaller queries into one query to reduce maintenance and improve performance. For more information, see Advanced searches in Workplace.
Expand rows to preview task data before you open the tasks and use the overflow menu . Batch modifies the properties of multiple tasks that you select directly from the task list.
Set up email notification to be informed when a new task is assigned to you or your team. Before you can enable the notification function, your administrator must configure the email environment to send Workplace notifications.
Access custom dashboards that provide information that is tailored to specific business needs. For quick navigation, copy and share or bookmark the URL of your Workplace pages.
Benefit from the automatic refresh of your task list whenever task changes occur. When the notification server is not available to trigger the auto refresh, the Refresh Button becomes available for you to refresh your task list manually.
Improve your efficiency by using the AI-infused task prioritization feature, which sorts your current list and prioritizes the best high-value tasks for you to complete. Your administrator can set the task prioritization to be
- Enabled by default Your list is automatically prioritized. Any subsequent resorting of the list overrides the prioritized sorting.
- Enabled manually You can toggle the task prioritization on or off. By default, prioritization is turned of. When you turn it on, the prioritized sorting overrides the current sorting of the list.

Working with workflows and cases

You can view your lists of workflows and cases and start them to complete different types of work from the start page. You can also quickly access your recent work through the Recent and Favorites lists. Similar to the task list, you can search, sort, and filter your workflow and case lists. For ease of use, Workplace provides separate lists of workflows and cases that you can participate in. Working with case instances in Workplace on-premises is available only in federated environments. See Configuring Workplace for a federated environment.

Depending on the type of work that needs to be done, you use different work patterns.

Start workflows to complete structured, sequential collaborative work. You can start your own workflow from a predefined activity or launch an existing workflow and use configured tasks and activities to complete the work. When you start the workflow, a task for the first activity is generated and is added to the task list of the assignee who does the work. When the first task is complete, the next task is started. Work continues automatically from one task to the next, and documents and activities are completed until all the work is complete.
Start cases to complete unstructured collaborative work. In a case, you can start activities as needed, by using a nonsequential work pattern. The case can contain required activities that can be started automatically, and optional activities that can be started manually. The assigned users or teams complete the tasks when an activity is started.
Tip: Accessing case instances in Workplace requires Process Federation Server (in federated environments) or Federated Data Repository (in nonfederated environments) be enabled, and also indexing of case instances in the Federated Data Repository. See Indexing case instances.

Switching roles: Case instances can have multiple roles. You can switch roles if you're logged in as a user that belongs to a multiple-role category. For client-side human service-based case pages, roles are loaded with the case details, and you can use the Switch Roles option to select the role you want to switch to. For widget-based case pages, you can select the role that is associated with a case page from the roles page that opens the navigator in a new tab.

Managing saved views

You can manage your saved views to keep your workspace organized. Depending on your permissions, you can rename your own saved views, and team managers can modify or delete saved views that are created by team members. Your administrator can also configure permissions to control who can create and share saved views.

To rename a saved view

From the task list, click the Customize your view icon .
In the Customize view dialog, locate the saved view that you want to rename in the Saved views list.
Click the edit icon next to the saved view name.
Enter the new name for the saved view.
Click the to save the new name.

Setting a default start page

You can set a saved view as the default start page for your Workplace instance. When you set a default page, Workplace opens to that saved view each time you log in.

The default start page can be configured at three levels:

User level

You can set your own default start page in two ways:

From the Customize view dialog: From the task list, click the Customize your view icon . In the Customize view dialog, select the saved view that you want to set as the default, select the Set as default start page checkbox, and click Save.
From user preferences: Select a saved view from the Default start page dropdown in your user preferences. For more information, see Setting preferences.

Both methods set the same user-level preference and take the highest precedence over desktop-level and system-level settings.

Desktop level

Administrators can configure a default saved view for any desktop that has the IBM Business Automation Workflow plug-in that is enabled in IBM Content Navigator. In the Navigator admin desktop, select the desktop, go to the Layout tab, and select a saved view from the Default saved view drop-down in the Feature parameters section. This setting applies only to that specific desktop.

Warning: In environments using an external Process Federation Server (PFS), the PFS origin is not automatically populated in the Business Automation Workflow plug‑in. To use default saved views, you must manually configure the PFS origin. This limitation applies only to external PFS setups.

System level

Administrators can set a system-wide default start page by using the com.ibm.bpm.workplace.defaultStartPage mashup property. This setting applies to all users but desktop-level and user-level settings overrides this setting. For more information about configuring this property, see Configuring mashup properties for non-PostgreSQL environments.

If multiple default start page configurations are set, the following precedence order applies:

User preference setting - Users can set their own default start page in their user preferences or by using the Set as default start page option in the Customize view dialog.
Desktop configuration setting - Administrators can configure a default saved view for a desktop in IBM Content Navigator.
System-level mashup property setting - This property provides a system-wide default.