Task and template management

Tasks represent an action a task assignee must undertake and are connected to individual pages in Anaplan boards and worksheets. It uses the full scope of features available to pages: grids, charts, actions, and others.

Tasks are the building blocks of Workflow, and are either one-off tasks, also known as page tasks, or are strung together to create a Workflow template. Tasks, individually or as part of a workflow, relate to business processes within your organization, and deliver task assignees actions to undertake.

For example, a task can ask that a user access a particular page in Anaplan and add a travel expense to an expense worksheet. This can be either part of a larger monthly process for expense approval, or a one-off expense for which an expedient workaround has been created.

A Workflow owner can create tasks directly from the page where the task takes place, or from the Workflow menu .

Every task consists of a title, a description, one or more task assignees, and an optional due date. These may also require an additional approval step for a specified approver.

There are different types of tasks in Workflow:

• Page tasks: One-off tasks assigned to a single Anaplan user.
• Group tasks: Tasks that are assigned to a group of users. Any of the users can complete the task.
• Hierarchical tasks: Groups of tasks that follow a sequence of dependent tasks.
• Machine tasks: tasks driven by Anaplan actions. Machine tasks don't require user interaction.
• Decision tasks: Task that decides on approvals of specific steps.
• Notification step: Tasks that send a custom notification message to an assigned user.
• Data Orchestrator: tasks driven by Anaplan Data Orchestrator actions.
  You can select to select what happens when a Data Orchestrator step fails in the workflow. 

You use templates as a blueprint for a workflow. Once a Workflow owner creates a template, they can use it as many times as needed. They can adjust individual elements of the template with every iteration of the workflow.

If you define a business process within your company as a sequence of tasks, then you create a template and schedule to re-run those tasks periodically, and complete these processes. For example, you can create a template that drives your organization's annual operations planning (AOP), once a year. You can also create a template to handle sales representatives' escalations any time they happen.

Templates consist of two or more back-to-back tasks, and can include: page tasks, group tasks, machine tasks, hierarchy tasks, and decision tasks.

On the Templates page, you can start a workflow based on an existing template by selecting the template and selecting Start workflow. You can also edit, duplicate, and delete templates. You can also select to use the Filters panel to search for a specific template by user or creation date.