Catalytic is now PagerDuty Workflow Automation

Assign Task to a Person

Use this action to have a Workflow assign a task to a team member or team group.

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For more sophisticated task assignment, like assigning tasks round robin or to a random user, see the Assign tasks to a random person in a group article.

Use case

The Assign Task to a Person action assigns a task to a PagerDuty Workflow Automation user or group. The action can also be assigned to a list of PagerDuty Workflow Automation users.

This action has many applications and should be the default catch-all action for any steps within a Workflow that require manual intervention. For example, when certain information needs to be collected and stored as fields or when an individual needs to be prompted for approval.

How to configure this action

Fields for this action

  • Assign To

    • Who should complete the task.

      • To assign to the instance owner, leave blank
      • To assign the same person every instance, enter their name or email
      • To assign a group, enter the PagerDuty Workflow Automation group name.
      • To assign to multiple users, add multiple names or email addresses and PagerDuty Workflow Automation will send the task to everyone assigned.
      • To assign a different user each instance, reference a field with an email value. For more info, see Why is my field reference in the assign to field not working?
    note
    • Note: When a task is assigned to multiple users, any of the assigned users can complete the task and once one user completes the task, it’s completed for all users.
  • Instructions

    • Provide the user with the information they’ll need to complete the task

    • Any combination of text and/or {{field-name}} references is acceptable

    • In addition, Markdown formatting and conditional display text are also available for this configuration

    • 💡   Tip: Use Markdown to format the instruction field with bold, italics, links, images, headers, and more. Conditionally displaying text is also supported.

  • Form Fields

    • Configure any fields for the user to complete. These values can be referenced later in {{field-name}} format
  • Deadline

    • Set a deadline for this task. Reminder emails are sent for each upcoming deadline depending on if the deadline is less or more than 24 hours away.

    • Choose and configure one of four deadline options:
      • None: The default for each task; no deadline is set.
      • Field: Choose from a list of available date & time and date fields.
      • Duration: Set the deadline to be a specific number of days, business days, hours, or minutes after the task is ready.
      • Date: Enter a specific date in yyyy-mm-dd format.
    • For more information on deadlines, see How to set a deadline for a task

What will this output?

The expected output are the task fields completed by the user, this action has no output fields otherwise.

Get help with a problem or question

If something’s not working as expected, or you’re looking for suggestions, check through the options below.

Why is my field reference in the assign to field not working?

The assign to field can accept a field reference to dynamically assign a task to a user. For example, you could have a field {{assign-to-this-user}} that is set in a prior task. Then, you can reference that field in an assign to action.

For this to work, the data in the field must be an email. It will not work if it is a name, username, or full name.

When PagerDuty Workflow Automation sends reminder emails for due tasks

Reminder emails are sent with different intervals depending on if the deadline for a task is less or more than 24 hours away. Check the Add a deadline to a manual task article to learn about deadlines.

  • If the deadline for a task is less than or equal to 24 hours away a single email notification reminder will be sent at the due date.

  • If the deadline is more than 24 hours away, 5 email notifications will be sent at different times. The following example assumes a deadline of 10 days is set.

    Reminder intervals Example days elapsed given 10 day deadline
    At 70% of the total amount of time On the 7th day
    On the deadline On the 10th day
    1 day after the deadline On the 11th day
    2 days after the deadline On the 12th day
    3 day after the deadline On the 13th day

💡   Tip: Reminder emails are not sent when testing a task or process. This is to prevent a recipient unintentionally receiving a reminder email when a process is being tested.

Tips

  • When naming tasks, consider the viewpoint of the person completing the task. (ex. Submit info may not be as clear as Submit new employee info for ADP)

  • Assign to:

    • For scenarios when a task needs to be assigned to an individual without a PagerDuty Workflow Automation account, please use the Email: Wait for reply action instead.

    • When in Test - By Myself mode for a Workflow instance, all tasks will be assigned to you.

    • For flexibility and ease of future updates, it is best to create a group or Instance Field for the assignee. When creating a Instance Field, store the current user assigned to this task as a default value within the field and add the newly created field in {{field-names}} as the assignee.

  • Instructions:

    • Add next steps in the instructions so the person completing the task is confident in what will happen when they complete the task. If there is a task early on in the instance, it may make sense to provide even more insight into the overall flow of the entire instance.

    • If there are several Assign Task to a Person tasks within a template which require the same instructions, consider creating a hidden Instance Field with the default value set as the duplicative string of text. Then, use the {{field-name}} format to reference in the instructions of each task. This will reduce time spent making edits and ensure consistency throughout the template.

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