Configuring in-baskets for roles

An in-basket lists the steps for the cases in a solution. (In Case Client, the steps that are defined for a task are called work items.) In Case Builder you can configure one or more in-baskets for a role.

About this task

IBM® Business Automation Workflow provides three types of in-baskets: role, personal, and assignment. You can also define other types of in-baskets by using IBM Process Designer
Role in-baskets
Case Builder automatically create a role in-basket when you create a role. In Case Client, this in-basket appears on a tab that is named after the role and contains all the steps that are assigned to a specific role for all the open cases in the solution.
By default, the following system properties are included in any role in-basket: Subject, Time Created, Step Name.
Personal in-basket
Optionally, you can configure your solution to display a personal in-basket for a case worker. You can configure the in-basket to display the properties that are common to all roles that are defined for the solution. Alternatively, you can configure the in-basket to display properties that are defined for the specific role to which a case worker belongs. Work items are added from a role in-basket to a personal in-basket when one of these actions occurs:
  • A case worker moves a work item from the common role in-basket to a personal in-basket.
  • A case worker reassigns a work item to a different case worker.
  • An automated processing step assigns the item to a specific workgroup.

In Case Client, this in-basket appears on the My Work tab and contains the steps that are assigned to that case worker.

By default, the following system properties are included in any new personal in-basket: Subject, Time Created, Step Name.

Assignment in-basket
An assignment in-basket shows all of the work items that are assigned to all case workers in every role. For example, you can assign this in-basket to a manager or supervisor role in addition to a personal in-baskets. To view and reassign work from the Assignment in-basket, a user must have write access to the application space for the solution. You configure this access after you deploy the solution by using the Process Configuration Console.

By default, the following system properties are included in any Assignment in-basket: Subject, Time Created, Step Name, Assigned to.

Procedure

To configure in-baskets for a role:

  1. Click the Roles tab and then click the role for which you want to assign an in-basket.
  2. Select the type of personal in-basket you want displayed for the role:
    In-basket type Description
    Personal (Common): Show the common view Displays the step properties that are common to all roles in the solution.
    Personal (Role): Show a custom view for this role Displays the step properties that are defined for the specific role to which the case worker belongs.
    If you do not want to display a personal in-basket, select Do not show common or role personal in-baskets.
  3. Optional: Select the work assignment check boxes to enable role members to move work items into the personal in-basket or to reassign work items to other case workers.
  4. Optional: To display the assignment in-basket for this role, select the Show the in-basket that displays all assigned work check box.
  5. Configure the properties and filters to be displayed in the in-baskets:
    1. Click the In-baskets tab and then click the in-basket that you want to configure.
    2. Click the In-basket General tab and select the properties to be displayed.
      You can specify the order that the properties are listed, whether each property is sortable, and you can limit the properties that are displayed so that only the most important information for the role is displayed in the in-basket. The case worker must open the work item to view the additional properties.
      For example, an automobile accident claim case has 25 properties. For quick access, you select these five properties to display in the in-basket: claim number, client family name, client given name, loss date, and estimated loss value.
      Note: The sortable property that you selected and the specified order (ascending or descending) are used by default to sort the items in the runtime in-basket. If you do not select a property, the first column property is used as the default sorting criterion. When you have an in-basket that contains a mix of FileNet P8 work items and processes, the default sort works as described if the total number of available work items is less than the default page size. If the total number of available work items is larger than the default page size, the sorted FileNet P8 work items are listed first, followed by the retrieved processes.
    3. Click the In-basket Filters tab. Define the filters that your users can use to filter steps (work items in Case Client). Filtering reduces what users see in their in-basket for this role.
      For example, you might want to create a filter that is named High Priority for users to quickly see high priority work items.

      If you define a filter with the operator is like, the filter returns all items that include the filter string anywhere in the value.

    4. Click OK.