Typical process components

Each process can have many different components, depending on the exact requirements of the process and your organization. Some of the more common components are described below. Your processes may use some or all of these. The actions to add these components might not be available at all statuses in the process, and the required privileges might not be available to all analysts.

Notes – Notes provide a convenient way to add information to a process or one of its components as the process progresses towards closure. A note does not usually affect the current status of the process. You can attach any number of notes to a single process, or a process component.

Attachments – You can add any type of attachment to a process, such as a spreadsheet, text document or image file. When you attach the file, you can access them from the Attachments tab on the Process window. You can attach any number of files to a single process.

You can restrict the types of file that users can attach to processes by configuring whitelisting for the instance. This can help to prevent potentially harmful files, such as executables, from being uploaded. For more information, see Creating an instance.

You must have the relevant application to view attached files. For files larger than 1 or 2 MB, we recommend that you store the file on a specified directory and put the path to this directory in the attachment name. The maximum file size for an attachment is 4 MB.

When you download files with names containing multi-byte characters (such as Japanese or Chinese letters) on iOS and certain desktop browsers, the file names are corrupted. We recommend avoiding file names containing multi-byte characters when using Web Access.

Tasks – If a process incorporates a number of activities, the process can be subdivided using one or more tasks. Tasks contain actions that must be resolved before you can close the process - processes are usually designed so that they can't be resolved until all of the tasks are complete. Tasks are sub processes of the main process.

You can assign a task to only one analyst, group or role at a time. If your process contains many tasks, each of these can be assigned to a different person.

You can add notes to a task. Task notes are separate and different from the process notes stored for the process. Task notes are often used to describe the results of problem analysis and diagnosis steps that are embodied by the task.

Reminders – As a process progresses, there are often times when you or another analyst needs to be reminded of something, such as calling a user, looking at a task at a particular time, or attending a meeting. Using reminders, you can send a message to yourself or to other analysts that appears at a specified time and date. You do not need to have the Process visible for a reminder to appear.

However, reminders are not a substitute for the Service Level management system.

For more information about service level management, see Service level management and response levels.

Reminders are related to processes – you can have any number of reminders associated with a single process, and you can set a reminder for any number of individuals, groups or roles.

You can send a notification message to the following people to ensure that they are aware of who the Process is assigned to, by selecting the appropriate check box:

• The analyst who is responsible for the Process (the Assignee)
• The person who logged the Process (the Originator)
• The user associated with the Process