A task is the lowest-level unit of work within Relay.
Relay supports multiple types of task – see Task types for details. The different types of task use Task actions, with different task types making different actions available or configuring them differently.
Some task types are designed to delegate work to another person (or organisation), known as the partner. As well as delegating work to a single partner, tasks can be shared with additional people (or organisations) who need visibility of the task or who may contribute to a task without being responsible for its completion.
Each task goes through a life cycle from start to end. The life cycle stage is shown by the status. Different task types have slightly different life cycles, but the general pattern of statuses is:
- Prepare – the task is being prepared.
- Ready to start – indicates that task preparation is complete, but the task has not started. Sub-statuses of ready are used when working with a partner:
- Sent – indicates that the task has been sent to the partner but not yet started.
- Received – same as sent but seen from the partner end.
- Accepted – indicates that the partner has agreed to do the task but has not yet started.
- Declined – indicates that the partner has declined to do the task.
- Referred – indicates that the partner has declined to do the task but has suggested an alternative partner to complete the task.
- Recalled – indicates that the task owner has withdrawn the task from the partner.
- Assign – for a task partner only, indicates that a task has been assigned to the partner and that they must accept or decline the task.
- In progress – the task is in progress.
- Submitted – for tasks with a partner, the partner has finished the task and submitted it to the task owner.
- Redo – for tasks with a partner, the task owner has asked for rework on a task.
- Complete – the task is complete.
- Cancelled – the task has been cancelled.
- Information only – used for tasks that do not have a life cycle, such as plan outlines.
During task initialisation, you may also see the statuses Initial or Generating.