Key Concepts
What is Work?
Simply put, work is any process that has a defined starting point, a defined ending point, and goes through any number of stages and activities between the two points. Work does not have to be predictable — although it can be. ShareDo supports work that is artisanal and largely unpredictable, as well as work that is highly prescriptive.
What is a Work Type?
A work type provides a common container for work; supporting efficient decision-making, collaboration and action-taking for users and machines. A work type is defined by:
- Work type hierarchy and relationships: ShareDo defines work types as a hierarchy with individual work types inheriting behaviour.
- Work type features: You can turn functionality on or off for a particular work type, and then configure how you want that functionality to behave.
- Phase plans: Describes the high-level plan for this work type.
- Data quality validation: You can configure the system to perform checks prior to progressing the plan. ShareDo typically promotes an “assistive” approach to process management in so far as that it offers case workers a set of tools and guidance through tasks but isn’t prescriptive in the order in which they do this. Through data quality rules, you can define what must happen before a phase is complete.
- Data capture: When a user accesses a work type, they see a specific view and navigation for that work type. You can define one or more portal definitions for a work type, depending on the visualisation of this work type and the key navigation items. Smaller work types, such as task types, may only require a key facts blade.
- Participant roles: Describes the roles that different people, organisations, teams, users or “things” (e.g. vehicles) play on a work type. Use participant roles to define both the internal and external roles performed for a work type, together with securing their access to the solution. Examples of participant roles include “Case Owner” and “Tenant”.
- Risk management: ShareDo has an inbuilt risk framework which you can configure for work types. Scorecards define the way in which you measure risk for a work type, and hence how you visualise risk across a portfolio of work.
- Key dates: ShareDo dates can be either normal fields or attributes, or key dates. Key dates introduce an additional layer of management for dates, including management of overdue key dates and associated escalations.
- Document templates: Use ShareDo document templates to send emails or create documents.
- Execution engine plans, allocation rules, matching rules: Defines the workflow processes executed as part of the work type and whether these are work type specific, or common process building blocks used across many different work types.
Where Do I See Work Types?
After you define a work type, it can become active in the system. Depending on your configuration, instances of work types and work items are visible throughout the application.
Visibility of work types is controlled by Global Permissions and Role-based Permissions.
Configuring a Work Type
Where do I configure a work type?
The work type configuration portal allows you to configure your work type to meet your and your customers' needs.
This is available from Launchpad > Modeller > Work types, then select the work type you wish to work with. For information on creating a new work type, see the article Create a New Work Type.
General Settings - Basic Settings
| Configuration | Description |
|---|---|
| General Settings - Basic Settings |
The general settings (basic) on a work type provide key items such as the work type name, icon and system name.  The category option set allows a user to select an option set which is used as the subtype for the work type. |
| Title & Reference |
The Title & Reference area allows you to access configuration for reference and title generators. If any of these items have been inherited from a parent work type, it is indicated here.  Generators allow the modeller to automatically generate unique work type titles and references. Watch this video to see it in use: Quick Start 005 - Work Type Modelling |
| Hierarchy |
The hierarchy section shows where your work type sits within the work type hierarchy. You are able to see any parent work type, the sibling types of the work type, and any derived (child) types.  |
| Aspects (data capture) |
Click Aspects at the top of the screen to configure how the blade for your work type will look. This enables you to control the data capture and display for your work type. Every work type has a key facts blade. This image shows an example of a blade.  |
Other Configuration Options
The left-hand navigation of the work type modeller page gives further detailed options for configuration.
| Menu | Description |
|---|---|
| Manage Features |
The Manage Features option allows you to manage specific features for the work type. Use the Open Global Features button to access all features.  |
| Data Composer |
Use the data composer to explore the data you have created within your configuration. Find out more about Data Composer here.  |
| Data Quality Rules |
Data quality rules allow you to specify rules that guide users through completing the right data in the right phases. These can be displayed on your work type blade or portal. Alternatively, you can add these to phase guards (edited via the phase plan modeller) to ensure that users complete mandatory data before moving on to the next stage of work.  |
| Participant Roles |
Manage the participant roles for your work type. Participant roles are the people, organisations, users, and teams involved in your work type. See Participants Overview for more information.
|
| Type Relationships |
Add or configure relationships between your work type and another. If you are creating a work type using a link to an instruction, if your work type is not appearing in the service portfolio, it is likely a missing link to instruction.
Define work type relationships using the Modeller > Work type > Work type relationships page. |
| Change Rules |
Change rules allows you to specify rules for the conversion of one work type to another. This is useful if you think there may be common scenarios where users create the wrong work type.  |
| Phase Model |
The Phase Plans modeller allows you to configure the phase model for the work type. If the phase plan is inherited from a parent work type, this is clearly displayed at the top of the screen. Try it out with Quick Start 008 - Creating your work type phase plan  |
| Key Dates |
Key Dates are a special kind of work type used for capturing key dates on your work type. They have their own phase plan and can be tracked or captured. Key dates can be linked to your work type from the Key Dates option on your work type screen. Try it out Quick Start 009 - Key Dates
|
| Portal designer |
The portal designer enables you to configure the portal page for your work type. Not all work types need to have a portal, as you will always have the more compact blade for every work type. Generally speaking, use portals for your larger, more complex work types.  |
| Menu designer |
Use the menu designer to configure menu options that appear on the work item portal ribbon. For information on using the menu designer, see the article Configuring menus for work types.  |
| Automation | Allows you to see the workflow plans associated with your work type |
