Task Automations

An automation watches your tasks and acts when one goes unanswered, sits too long, or blows its due date. It can add a note, escalate the priority, change the status, reassign the task or pull the right people in.

Every rule reads like a sentence: when this happens, to these tasks, then do this. You can run as many rules as you need side by side.

Accessing Automations

Go to Setup > Automations (reach out to support@owlops.com in case this needs to be enabled for you).

How Timing Works

An automation never changes a task directly. It queues the change, and the change is applied the same way as an update a person types. There are four steps:

Expect a few minutes between a condition being met and a notification arriving.

Creating an Automation

Click New automation. The editor opens at the top of the page, with three sections: When (1), Applies to (2) and Then (3). Fill them in from left to right, then click Save.

Name, Description, Order and Active

The top row of the editor names the rule and controls when it runs.

• Name: what the rule is called in the list and in Recent activity. Make it clear to someone who didn't build it, for example "Urgent unanswered after 1 hour" rather than "Rule 3".
• Description (optional): a note for whoever edits the rule next. It's only shown in the editor.
• Order: lower numbers run first. This only matters when two rules match the same task at the same time. The rule with the lower Order acts first, and the other one acts on a later run. Nothing is lost.
• Active: new rules are always inactive. Leave this unchecked until you've previewed the rule (see Previewing and Activating a Rule below).

1. When

When sets what makes the rule fire.

• Trigger: which clock the rule watches. See the triggers table below.
• After: how long the condition must last before the rule acts, in minutes, hours or days. "2 hours" and "120 minutes" are the same.
• Only during business hours: the rule only fires Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm, in the local time of the person the task is assigned to (or the person who raised it, if it's unassigned). This controls when the rule fires, not how time is counted. A task that goes quiet on Friday afternoon still has the weekend counted against it, and the rule acts on Monday morning.
• Run at most ... times per task: leave this at 1 for a one-time escalation. Raise it for a recurring reminder. For example, 3 chases the task three times, with a full wait between each one.

Triggers

What counts as a response? A real update from a real person. Opening (reading) or liking a task doesn't count, and neither does a note added by an automation.

Note: The two SLA triggers use the response targets set in Setup › SLA Targets (also in a category's Actions menu). Until targets are set, these rules don't match any tasks.

2. Applies to

Applies to narrows which tasks the rule watches. Each row has three choices:

• Any: don't narrow by this row.
• Only these: the task must match one of the values you check.
• All except these: the task must not match any of the values you check.

You can check as many values as you need. For example, High and Urgent can be one rule.

Status starts on Only these with Open, Requested and Approved checked, so new rules only watch open work. Change this if you need to.

Two checkboxes at the bottom are checked by default:

• Include scheduled / PM tasks: uncheck this to watch only tasks raised by hand.
• Include tasks dispatched to a vendor: uncheck this to watch only your own team's work.

Deleted tasks, individual checklist line items and timesheet tasks are never included.

3. Then

Then sets what the rule does. Everything here happens as a single task update.

• Add this note to the task: the note is posted to the task history and is the text of the notification, so write it for the reader, for example "Auto-escalated: no response in 1 hour".
• Change priority to: optional. Raising a task to High or Urgent means the notification ignores people's quiet hours.
• Change status to: optional. Most often used to cancel stale work automatically.
• People: choose Notify or Assign to, choose who (see the table below), then click Add. You can add more than one.

- Notify tags the person on the task, and they stay tagged on it. - Assign to reassigns the task. If more than one person matches, the first one gets it.

• Send the notification (email / push): checked by default. Uncheck it to apply the rule silently. The note and any changes are still made, but nobody is notified.

A rule with no one to notify or assign still posts its note and applies any priority or status change.

Who Gets Reached

People are worked out from the task when the rule fires.

Only people who can actually see the task are reached. For example, Everyone in a role only reaches the people in that role who have access to the task.

When you're done, click Save.

Previewing and Activating a Rule

After you save, the new rule shows as Inactive in the list, with the message "Saved. Use Preview to see what it would do before you arm it."

Click Preview on the rule's row.

Preview shows which tasks the rule would act on right now, and who it would notify or assign. Nothing is changed. Preview works on inactive rules, so use it every time.

When the preview looks right, click Activate on the rule's row, or open it with Edit and check Active.

Using the Template Library

The Template library has ready-made automations you can add with one click. Click Template library on the Automations page to expand it, then click Add to my automations on a template, or Add the starter set to add the starter templates. Templates you already have show Already added.

A template is a copy, not a subscription. Adding a template copies it into your list as an inactive rule. The copy is yours to rename, retime and narrow down, and later changes to the template don't affect it.

Templates only notify people who are worked out from the task, such as the category default assignee, the sub-region primary or the person who raised it. They never name a specific person or role, so narrow your copy to your own categories and people once it's added.

Note: The two SLA templates need response targets set in Setup › SLA Targets. Until then, they don't match any tasks.

Examples

These three rules work well side by side:

Things to Know

• Notified people stay on the task. Notifying someone tags them, and they're copied on that task's future updates. Anyone can remove the tag from the task.
• High and Urgent ignore quiet hours. A rule that raises a task to High or Urgent reaches people outside the hours they've set for email. Keep this for real emergencies.
• One automated update per task at a time. If two rules match the same task, the one with the lower Order acts first and the other waits for the next run.
• Rules start inactive. Nothing you build or add from the library runs until you activate it. Always build or add, then Preview, then activate.