Create multiple tasks from templates

In this article we will demonstrate how you can use WorkPoint Automate to create multiple tasks from templates. We will not demonstrate how to set up a Task template library, but will instead focus on how to set up a process using the Create documents, folders and items step, so we can create multiple tasks in one go.

Even though the demonstration covers tasks from templates, the concept can be translated to all types of items in your WorkPoint solution.

For demonstration purposes, we have created the following Task Template Library:

We will now configure a WorkPoint Automate process in which we can select a set of task templates, and then create them all on e.g., a project in one go.

The process will consist of the following two steps:

• Search form (for selecting which task templates to use for creation)
• Create documents, folders and items (for creating new tasks based on the selected templates)

We have created the following empty process:

We begin by adding a Search form step:

1. We add a Search form to the process.
2. We will allow users to select multiple task templates, but we will not allow users to continue onward from this step without making a selection.
3. In the "Configure tabs" section, we click the "New configuration" button and select "Templates".

4. In the Tab configuration, we provide a title for the tab.
5. In the "List" field, we specify which template library/list to search through on the tab.
6. In the "Default view" field, we select the "All Items" view from the template list.

We can then add the Create documents, folders and items step:

8. In the Step Input field of the Create documents, folders and items step, we select the output from our Search form.

Next, let's take a look at the Options tab:

9. In the "Business module" field, we have to specify the business module which contains the entity on which we want to create the tasks. In this instance, we select the Projects module.
10. In the "Entity" field, we need to specify the ID of the entity on which we want to create the tasks.
11. In the "List" field, we need to specify in which list on the entity site we want to create the tasks.
12. In the "Output exists behaviour" field, we specify what should happen is the step attempts to create a task with a name that is already in use in the specified list. The options are:
    • Cancel: The step will cancel and not create the item
    • Overwrite: The new item overwrites the existing one.
    • Rename: The new item is created but with a number appended at the end, e.g., "Start report (1)".
13. To automatically map the fields coming from each element from the step input to the fields on the selected list, we click the "Map fields" button. By doing this, all fields in the list will be mapped to "Element.[field]", for example "Element.Title" and "Element.Progress":

By doing this mapping, the data from each selected element, or in this case task, from the Search form, will be input into the corresponding fields when they are created.

We can overwrite these values by replacing the mappings with either context data or an adaptive expression.

For example, the automatic mapping has mapped the "Assigned to" field to "Element.AssignedTo0", as seen here:

If we take a look at our Task template list, there is no assigned person for any of the templates, so if we just used the automatic mapping, no person would be set for the tasks created from the templates.

We can instead, for example, add references to the current user, or maybe the Project Manager of our project, like so:

Or like so, as an adaptive expression for the field:

In this demonstration, we just select the current user from the context.

If we take another look at the Task template list, we also notice the "Offset days" field. We have created this field so that we can use it's values to automatically, upon creation of tasks from templates, set e.g., the Due date for the task to the current date, plus each individual task's offset days.

For example, when we create a task from the "First meeting" task, which has an offset days value of 3, on the Due date field, we can use an adaptive expression like the following:

This will ensure that when the task is created, the Due date will be today's date, plus 3 (the offset days value for that task). Note that "offsetDays" is the internal name of the Offset days field in the Task template list. Also note that we wrap the reference to Element.offsetDays inside the "int()" function, so ensure that the value is interpreted as a number and not a string.

This method applicable for all tasks created using this method, so if we use this method for creating 3 different tasks, with differing offset days, each task will be created with a Due date equal to today's date, plus each individual task's offset days.

For this demonstration, we keep this expression for the Due date field do demonstrate it's use.

We can now save and publish the process. We then set up a My Tools button to execute the process:

In this instance, we have created a button on  our Project entity sites which executes the Create tasks from templates process.

Let's take a look at how it works:

13. On our Project Red, we access the button and click it.

This launches our process and the Search form is displayed:

14. In the Search form, we select the first four task templates.
15. We then click the Continue button.

Next, the Create documents, folders and items step processes our inputs:

Upon completion, we are presented with the following screen:

We can now close the process and take a look at our Tasks list:

In the image above, we can see that our tasks have been created using the metadata from the templates, and with our custom values set in the Assigned to, and Due date fields.