Working with SAS Task Manager

Overview

SAS Task Manager provides a location to manage workflow instances that have been initiated in SAS Data Remediation, SAS MDM, or other external applications. For additional information, see the SAS Data Remediation User’s Guide or the SAS MDM User’s Guide.

SAS Task Manager displays a summary of information from external processes. Users can monitor and manage assignments for workflow tasks that are displayed in SAS Task Manager, correct the problems in an external system, and then close the issue within SAS Task Manager.

SAS Task Manager does not use a separate administration environment. SAS Task Manager relies on SAS Workflow Studio for workflow template design and management on the SAS Workflow server. For information about SAS Workflow Studio, see the SAS Workflow Studio: User's Guide.

SAS Data Management Console Portlet

On the SAS Data Management Console, the Task Manager portlet displays an overview of tasks and a sampling of data:

SAS Data Management Console

Note: In the following descriptions, Actions menu items are accessed by clicking Actions Icon

. Some functions available from the Actions menu are also available from icons next to the Actions menu. Clicking the icon performs the function.

The top right area of the portlet contains an Actions menu with the following options:

Display

enables you to check the number of items to display in the portlet. You can choose from 5, 10, 20, or 40 items.

Refresh

refreshes the list of items in the portlet list.

Note: The portlet does not refresh automatically. You must refresh it.

Close the Portlet

closes the portlet on the SAS Data Management Console.

Note: For additional information about specifying portlet display preferences, see the SAS MDM User’s Guide.

When you click an item in the portlet list, the item opens in SAS Task Manager. You can also click Task Manager in the portlet or Task Manager under APPS to open SAS Task Manager.

SAS Task Manager is displayed in a new tab:

SAS Task Manager

Depending on the permissions granted to you, can perform the following actions from the SAS Task Manager tab:

Search for tasks based on different criteria.
Edit and close tasks.
Create new tasks.
Terminate tasks.

The following sections describe these actions in detail.

SAS Task Manager Tab

Quick Search

When the SAS Task Manager tab opens, it displays a complete list of tasks. You can perform either a quick search or an advanced search to narrow this list to the tasks that you need to view.

To perform a quick search:

Enter the search term into the search field in the toolbar:

Search Field

As you enter characters in the search field, the search automatically populates the task list with matching tasks.
Click to clear the search characters and restore the default task list.

Advanced Search

To perform an advanced search:

Click to display search criteria:

Advanced Search Options
As you specify any or all of the search criteria, the task list is modified accordingly.
You can do any of the following:
- Click to expand all the search categories.
- Click to collapse all the search categories.
- Click to restore the search criteria to their default settings.
- Click again to close search criteria.
Note: To view the complete task list again, click to restore the search criteria to their default settings and restore the list.

Managing Tasks

The toolbar at the top of the task list contains an Actions menu with the following options:

New Task

creates a new task. You must have a role assignment that enables you to perform this action.

Open

opens the task selected in the task list and displays details about it in a new tab.

Terminate

removes the selected task from SAS Task Manager. You must have a role assignment that enables you to perform this action.

Details Pane

displays or hides details of the selected task in a separate pane.

Show All Tasks

appears if you are assigned the Task Manager: Task Administration role or are a member of the Data Management Administrators group. Selecting this shows all workflow tasks active in the system regardless of whether you are part of the workflow definition itself. You do not gain any extra privileges beyond those normally defined for a participant in the workflow. If you have permission to terminate tasks, you can terminate any workflow task visible due to the enabling of this feature.

In addition, if you are not defined as a user or group participant in an active workflow when this option is selected, the Data tab in the details pane does not appear nor does the toolbar containing actions buttons that were derived from the workflow definition.

Refresh

refreshes the task list.

About SAS Task Manager

displays application version information.

The details pane at the bottom of the tab contains two sub-tabs: Task Details and Task Data. The Task Details tab is displayed by default. For detailed information about the fields on these tabs, see the Task tab description.

Action buttons might appear below the Task Details and Task Data sub-tabs. These are determined by the workflow definition and might not be a part of your template.

Task Tab

When you select a task from the task list and click Open, the task opens in a new tab.

Task Tab

The toolbar contains an Actions menu with the following options:

Terminate

terminates the workflow on the server and removes the selected task from SAS Task Manager. You must have a role assignment that enables you to perform this action.

Refresh

refreshes the task list.

Action buttons might appear in the toolbar. These are determined by the workflow definition and might not be a part of your template.

The Task Details and Task Data panes are comparable to the Task Details and Task Data sub-tabs on the SAS Task Manager tab.

The Task Details pane provides an overview of information related to the selected task:

Name

the name of the selected task.

Workflow definition

the name of the workflow template used for the selected task.

Activity

a value that comes from the workflow definition. It is the current step in the workflow. When you change a status, the Activity state changes depending on the design of the workflow.

Assignee

the user or users assigned to the selected task.

Start date

the date on which the workflow was started.

Activity ID

identification defined in SAS Workflow Studio. This only appears if the corresponding SAS Task Manager user preference has been selected to show IDs. For details, see Activity ID.

Workflow ID

identification defined in SAS Workflow Studio. This only appears if the corresponding SAS Task Manager user preference has been selected to show IDs. For details, see Workflow ID.

The values that are displayed on the Data pane depend on the design of your workflow template. The information under Task Data comes from the data objects in the workflow definition. You can control the visibility and editability of the data object values by setting certain attributes on the data objects through SAS Workflow Studio. For more information, see About SAS Task Manager.

If you add or edit values in data object fields that are editable, they are passed into the next step of the workflow when you use one of the copy data object policies available on the task.

The following data object values are always provided by the workflow engine:

Process Invoker

the user that sent the task to SAS Task Manager.

Process Title

the name used in SAS Data Remediation for the selected task.

Some steps in the workflow provide a specific interface for user interaction. For example, if the workflow template is so designed, then SAS Task Manager can interact with SAS MDM. In Task Tab, this appears as the SAS MDM: Actions pane. The fields displayed in this pane depend on your data source and are shown here only as examples.

After you have reached a terminal step in the workflow, the task no longer appears in SAS Task Manager.