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Interacting with external participants

External participants

This feature allows the interaction with participants that don't have a Flokzu account. If the task has been set up to obtain the assignees from a field, and in that field there is an email that doesn’t belong to the account, then that participant is considered as an external participant and he/she will receive an email with a link to participate (as long as this feature is enabled).

External participants can't complete tasks, neither view form fields nor modify them. External participants will be able to see the values of form fields, provided that these have been added to the 'Documentation' tab in Users Tasks.

The task that only has external participants as assignees can be combined with an interruptive timer so that no one needs to manually complete the task. Each external interaction will be notified via email to those assigned to complete it (if the Administrator is an assignee for the task, then he/she will receive the notification sent to external participants, but if he/she is not an assignee, the Admin will not receive this notification).

How to set up the interaction?

In the workflow modeler, open the task in which you want to enable the interaction with external participants. In the 'Assignees' tab, define the assignee(s) from a field (where later the email of the external participant will be entered). In the example, our field is called 'Email'.

Emails to which you want to send invitations to will be obtained from the fields that are currently allowed to assign tasks (email, combo box or multiselect combo box). You can assign internal users as well as external participants to the same task.

In the workflow modeler, open the task and navigate to the 'Options' tab. You'll see there an option which says "This task allows interaction with users external to Flokzu". You must click on this checkbox.

When Flokzu evaluates the assignation of the task, if the assignee's email is not a Flokzu user and the interaction with external participants is enabled, the system will send a notification to interact in that task.

In that same popup, navigate to the 'Documentation' section and write there what you want the external participant to see in the interaction page. The idea is that under 'Documentation' your add the information the external participant needs in order to know what does he/she needs to answer, upload, etc.

In the Documentation, you can add form fields, as well as special fields (e.g. Identifier, Due Date, among others). You can also insert HTML code in this section to customize the text.

Lastly, in the 'Permissions' tab, there is a new category with the permission to 'View external user interactions' (unchecked by default). This is to decide in which tasks you want to view the interactions. By default, if you enable interactions in a task, the permission will be enabled. For the rest of the tasks, this option will be unchecked by default, which is why you should enter the tasks in which you want to enable interactions with external participants and enable that permission.

If there were interactions in a process instance, you'll be able to view them all in the corresponding tab once the instance has been finalized. If there were no interactions, the tab will remain hidden.

In case the external participant tries to interact in a task that has already been completed by a Flokzu user, the external participant will be notified that the task no longer exists when he/she tries to complete it.

What will external participants receive?

When the system arrives to a task where an interaction with an external participant is enabled, and whose assignee is an external user, an email will be sent to the external participant, similar to the following:

The external participant clicks on 'Open the form' and he/she will access a page where the documentation will be shown. There they'll also see a text area field up to 1,200 characters long (required) and they'll be able to upload a single file of up to 10 MB (optional).

What will they be able to do?

External participants won't be able to complete form fields or tasks, they'll only be able to complete a text area field with the information required and to upload an attachment.

In case a Due Date has been set for the task, and the checkbox to alert the assignees 24 working hours prior to the due date has been checked, this notification will also be sent to the external participant in case he/she hasn't participated in the task. Additionally, if you have added the Due Date in the Documentation, the external participants will see it in the notification to participate.

External participants won't be able to view the form fields that weren't added to the Documentation task.

How can I view the interactions in a process instance?

When opening an instance, a new tab will appear (if the 'View external user interactions' permission has been enabled) showing the interactions one below the other one, in ascending order (newest first). Basic information will be shown: sender, extract, date, and, if there is an attachment, a paperclip icon to the left.

Click on an interaction and the detail will be displayed. If there is an attachment that allows previewing,(image/pdf), the preview icon will appear.

If you click on the 'Resend task notification email' button located in Real Time Reports, email notifications to external participants will be resent.

Updated on: 18/02/2019

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