Setting up a dynamic and automated workflow on your project (swim lanes)

You can use the move on complete feature available on any Task Group to set up a swim lanes workflow on your Projects

Optional automation using Goals

Allow your collaborators to kick off this process using Action Links

Adding Action Links to your Plan

Setting Up Your Plan

Editing your Group options to set up automation

Taking a look at the automation process in action

Optional automation using Goals

Optional: You can create a Goal with a target launch date (or whatever else your goal is). Set the target date as the date you wish to complete the project. 

If you set the Goal Auto-Complete option to Task, and then add some tasks in the Related Task dropdown on the right hand side menu, you can automatically complete the goal when all of those selected tasks are marked Complete.

  
If you don't have any tasks yet, that's ok. You can come back here any time you like and add Related Tasks.

Allow your collaborators to kick off this process using Action Links

Optional: You can have your collaborators kick off the workflow by allowing them to create tasks to get the process started. This is accomplished by allowing them to fill out a form which then creates a new task. 

Skip this step if you are creating the tasks yourself or using recurring tasks to kick off your workflow

In this sample, I created a form by navigating to Settings > Forms

For this example, I am requiring the collaborators to submit an invoice.

Make sure to check the Enable Action option at the bottom of the form - this will allow you to add the form to your Plan. 

• The title of your form (mine is Invoices) will be the title of the new task group that will be created when the action link is added to your plan. Make sure you pick a title that you want your group to be
• Action Link Text is what will show up as the link text your collaborators will see
• Instructions for your client is optional instruction text that will show up above the form
• Due date relative business days will assign a due date that is (number of relative days + using the day the task is created using the form as day 0)

Here is what my form looks like:

This is what collaborators will see when they click on the action link in the Plan (created from the form above):

Adding Action Links to your Plan

You will find Action Links at the top on the right hand side of your plan. Click the Add Action Links option to select the form you have created.

Select all the forms you would like your collaborators to be able to fill out. You must have checked the Enable Action checkbox on your form to allow it to show up in this list. If you do not see your form, please go back to Settings > Forms and make sure that option is checked

You will notice as soon as you select the form(s) as action links, it will create a new group for each form. These will be added at the bottom of your Plan, you can drag and drop to reorder your groups however you like.

I will be using this group as the starting point in my automation process, so I will move it to the top of my Plan using the drag and drop handle.

Setting Up Your Plan

I will be setting up my plan that when a task is completed, it automatically moves from group to group and is assigned to a new collaborator.

Here is what my plan looks like so far:

  
I would like to start off with tasks in the group called Invoices, then whenever the task is completed, it moves down to Task Assignment, then Review, and so on until it reaches the Ready for Launch group. Keep reading on a detailed guide of how I accomplish exactly that.

Editing your Group options to set up automation

Edit the first Task Group by clicking the ... menu on the right side of the group and selecting Edit Task Group

Here is what I would like to happen: 

1. Any task that is added to this group is assigned to whoever is the Project Manager
2. When a task in this group is completed, I want it to move down to the next group
3. I would like to give the next assignee 3 days to complete the task when it gets assigned to them

I accomplish point 1 by setting the Auto-Assign to Manager. This means any task that gets added to this group will automatically be assigned to the project manager. The only options you are able to set in this dropdown are roles, so before you kick off the plan, make sure you have all collaborators invited and assigned their proper roles.

Here is an article about project roles

Here I am selecting this collaborator as role: customer which I will use to automate assignment later on

I accomplish point 2 by setting the Move-on-Complete option to the Task Group name that I want that task to move to when the status is marked complete. If you take a look at my plan screenshot, you will see the next group down is Task Assignment, and that is what I will chose in that dropdown.

I accomplish point 3 by adding the value 3 in the input box next to Update Due Date on Move-To-Complete. This will automatically calculate using the date that the task status was set as Complete as day 0 and will add 3 days to it to get the new due date

Don't forget to click the Save button at the bottom of the modal to save your changes!

Let's quickly go through the rest of the Task Group settings.

Here are my settings that moves the tasks down the list from Task Group to Task Group, and also automatically assigns the roles whenever the tasks get moved into each subsequent group.

For example, when the task gets moved into the group titled Review, it gets assigned to the role: supporting customer, and when that person completes the task, it moves to Packaging assigned to the same person followed by Final Review which is then re-assigned to the Manager

If you have a finite amount of tasks, you can set up one last bit of automation that as soon as all tasks in this group are completed, the entire project will be marked as Complete (and archived).

This is an option, please feel free to not use it if you wish to manually set your Project Statuses to complete.

Here is an article on Project Statuses

Taking a look at the automation process in action

It is highly recommended that you test your project to make sure that all of your automation steps are working. Since I created a form that I would like my collaborators to use to kick off the automation process, I will fill that out (as a test). If you are not using Action Links, just create a new test project inside of that first Task group (Invoices). You will notice that as soon as that Task is created, it is assigned to the Project Manager, as that is the role I selected for that group.

Using the form:

New Task was manually added (automatically assigned to the project manager)

Invoice from week 1 was automatically created from using the Submit Your Invoice Actions form

Ok, now let's see what happens when I set the Task Status to Complete:

As expected, it moved down to Task Assignment and we re-assigned to the role: customer which I had set to a collaborator (orange cat icon)

Note that the status will be automatically set to Status: Not Started and the date is set to 07/12/2024 - that is 3 days after it was completed on 07/09/2024

Keep testing until you are happy with the results and are sure that the plan is working to your liking.

If you have many projects that need to be set up this way, it is a great time to save your project as a Template.

First, make sure to delete any test tasks and/or collaborators that you have set up, and navigate to Edit Plan > Save As New Template

Now you can load this template (including actions, summary, and goals) to any existing project or create new projects from that template