Work and assignments

Tasks, work items, officer assignments and comments — how work is allocated to people and tracked to completion.

Operations → My Work → /work-items

Most of what the platform detects — an arrears case, a failed meter poll, an expiring lease, a service request — has to end up with a person. Work and assignments is the layer that does that: it decides who owns a piece of work, gives them a list to work from, and keeps the trail of what was said and done.

There are four surfaces, and they build on each other.

SurfaceWhat it is
Assignment RolesThe business roles work can be assigned under — Collections, Relationship, Outreach — and the scope each one covers.
Entity AssignmentsWhich officer holds which entity (tenant, unit, branch) under which role.
My WorkThe work items assigned to you personally, or to a role you hold.
TasksFree-standing tasks for follow-ups and operational activity.
CommentsThe discussion thread attached to a task, case or other record.

Assignment roles

An assignment role is a named business function with a scope. The scope determines what kind of entity the role can be attached to.

FieldMeaning
NameThe business function — Collections Officer, Relationship Manager, Outreach Agent.
ScopeThe entity level the role attaches to: tenant, unit, branch.
StatusWhether the role is currently available for new assignments.

Define roles before you assign anyone. Changing a role's scope after assignments exist does not re-scope the assignments already made.

Entity assignments

An entity assignment is the actual pairing: this officer holds this entity under this role.

  1. Pick the role

    Only roles whose scope matches the entity you are assigning are offered.

  2. Pick the entity

    A tenant, a unit, or a whole branch depending on the role's scope.

  3. Pick the officer

    Any active user. The officer does not need to be an administrator.

  4. Set the period

    An assignment can be open-ended or bounded. Bounded assignments stop routing work after the end date, but the history stays.

Assigning at branch level is the fast way to cover a portfolio; assigning at tenant or unit level is how you handle exceptions — a difficult account that a named officer should keep.

My work

My Work is the officer-facing list. It shows work items assigned to you directly, plus work routed to any assignment role you hold.

ColumnMeaning
ItemWhat the work is — a collections case, a service request, a task.
EntityThe tenant, unit or lease it concerns.
RoleThe assignment role that routed it to you.
DueWhen it should be actioned.
StatusOpen, in progress, done.

Work items are generated, not typed in. A collections case opening creates one; a service request being assigned creates one. If you want a piece of work that the system did not generate, create a task.

Tasks

Tasks are for the work that has no other home: a follow-up call, a document to chase, an inspection to arrange.

FieldMeaning
Title and descriptionWhat needs doing.
AssigneeThe person responsible.
Due dateWhen it is expected.
PriorityRelative urgency.
StatusOpen, in progress, complete.
Related entityThe tenant, unit, lease or case the task hangs off.

Linking a task to an entity is what makes it findable later — an unlinked task is only ever visible from the task list.

Comments

Comments are the thread on a record. They are used on tasks, collection cases, service requests and opportunities.

Comments are part of the record, not a private note: they are visible to anyone who can see the parent record, and they are retained with it. Put the decision and its reason in a comment — that is what makes a case readable to whoever picks it up next.

Working the queue

  1. Start from My Work, not from a report

    The queue is already scoped to you and already prioritised.

  2. Comment as you go

    A case with no commentary cannot be handed over.

  3. Close what is done

    Items left open inflate everyone's queue and distort workload reporting.

  4. Escalate by reassigning

    Move the entity assignment rather than working outside the queue.

Common problems

SymptomCause
My Work is emptyYou hold no assignment role, and nothing is assigned to you directly.
Work goes to the wrong personThe entity assignment is stale — check the officer and the period.
A branch generates no workNo assignment exists at any level for that branch.
A task cannot be foundIt was created without a related entity.
An officer left and their queue vanishedEnd-date the assignment and create a replacement; do not delete the user.