Task Manager trick: Properties with static text and a case property
With Dovetail Task Manager, a Task will define the properties that get set when the task is executed.
Set a Property to a Static Text Value
For example, I can have a task that creates a subcase, and I can set it up so that the subcase title will be set to Do something awesome!
The task property setup would look like:
So when the subcase is created, its title will be Do something awesome!
Set a Property to the Same Value as a Case Property
Alternatively, instead of setting a property to a static text value, we can set it to be the same as a case property.
For example, we can set the subcase title to be the same as the case title, as shown here:
So when the subcase is created, its title will be the same as whatever the case title is.
Dynamic Property Notation
When the task is displayed, if the Value is a case property, it’s displayed wrapped in square brackets:
Notice that the Value for Title is [Title]
Again, when the subcase is created, its title will be the same as whatever the case title is.
This syntax should be very familiar to anyone who’s ever created a business rule within Clarify or Dovetail. Within a business rule message, dynamic variables are wrapped in the same square brackets.
Set a Property to a Static Text Value and a Case Property
Combining these two together, we can set a property to be a combination of both static text and a case property.
Simply type in the static text, and type in a case property (wrapped in square brackets).
In edit mode, it will look like:
In show/display mode:
Notice that we’re setting the subcase title to be Do something awesome! The original case title: [Title]
This combines the static text of Do something awesome! The original case title: with a case property of [Title].
Test it out
Looking at a case:
we can see:
- the case title is Need assistance with lorem ipsum
- the demo task set was run
- which created subcase 4144-2
Looking at the subcase that was created as part of the task set:
We can see that the subcase title is Do something awesome! The original case title: Need assistance with lorem ipsum, which is the combination of static text and case value that we expected.
Summary
And there you go – a little trick that makes Task Manager properties even more powerful. Hope you dig it.
Rock on.
