You can add extra tasks into any pre-existing Job in Senta, allowing you to customise your Jobs. This can be useful when you just want to add an extra step or tweak one of Senta's template Jobs.

Adding Tasks

Open Settings > Jobs and choose the job you want to add to.

Click on Tasks.

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Add task to add an extra task to the Job.

You will then be shown the task configuration window. This is where you can set the various options for you task.

Task Type

There are different types of tasks. The most basic one is a manual task – an instruction to someone in your practice to do something – but there are more clever task types too, which Senta can do automatically.

You can find out more about task types here.

Assigning Tasks

Each task is assigned to someone. Mostly you can let Senta decide who to give the task to and it will be decided at the right moment. Or, you can make sure that the task is given to the same person every time. For example, if one person does, say, all the invoicing, you could have a "send invoice" task go to that one person every time.

You might want to add in a specialist user type, such as a bookkeeper role to complete all bookkeeping tasks.

You also have the option to make a task 'Unassigned' by default. This can be useful if you have tasks in your Job that are assigned to different people after they have been created.

If you assign a task to Senta, Senta will complete the task without any intervention. If you assign it to person, then the person is prompted to complete the task. Obviously some tasks aren't actually completable by Senta (filling in a form, for example), but others such as notifications and emails are.

Start and Due Date Offset

Click on the Timings tab to choose start and due date offsets.

Normally, tasks are just done as and when, but you can add timings to your Job tasks if you like. This lets Senta know how soon a task can be started, and when it has to be finished.

Optional Start Offset and Optional Due Offset are used to tell Senta when to schedule tasks. When a job is started, Senta gives it a job date to use. Every task in the job is started relative to the job date and is marked as due relative to the job date. For example, "start a task 2 days after the job date" or "make a task due 5 days before the job date". You can find more about this in the support centre.

If you don't enter a start offset, all tasks will start as soon as Senta creates them. If you don't enter a due offset they won't ever show as overdue – you can just do them as and when.

To enter the offsets, use codes like:

+1d = the task will start / be due 1 day after the job date

-2w = the task will start / be due 2 weeks before the job date

+1m+2w+4d = the task will start / be due 1 month, 2 weeks and 4 days after the job date.

We have a full guide to date offsets here.

The "show on calendar" option lets you mark tasks so that their start date or due date will be shown on the calendar. For example, if you want to highlight due dates for accounts tasks, just tick the box. All tasks of this type will be shown on the calendar.

Task dependencies

Click on the Depends upon tab to set up relationships between tasks, so that a particular task won't start until another has finished.

Filters

Ordinarily, every task on the Job will be started for each client who ends up using the Job. However, you can add criteria to alter which clients the tasks are Applicable to.

You might want to use this to fill in different forms for different types of clients, for example. "Company details form" could be applicable to, say, limited companies, and "Partnership details form" could be applicable to, say, just partnerships.

Adding and removing filters

Click the Add filter button and choose what field you want to filter by. 

Next, choose the values that you want to match. Whenever this Job is in progress for a client, the task will only be scheduled if the client matches the filters

N.b. You can choose which fields appear in the filter dropdown, by setting 'Can this field be used as a filter?' to Yes in the form field settings.

Click the X button to remove a filter.

You can find out more about filters in How do filters work?

Changing the order of tasks

To change the order of tasks you can click and drag the task to where you would like it to be. You will see a green dotted line to indicate where the task will be placed.

The order of tasks in the list doesn't make a difference, except while you're setting up the Job: When you set a task to depend on another task being completed, you can only pick a task that is above it in the list. However, it's better to put the tasks in the order you intend to do them, because it makes it easier for everyone to understand where they are in the job.

Removing tasks

Click the waste bin button next to the task to remove it from the Job. 

Saving or cancelling your changes

No changes to your job will be saved until you click the Save button, so don't forget to click Save when you're done.

Similarly, if you decide you don't want to keep your changes, click Cancel at any time. Any changes you've made (including deleting tasks) will be ignored and the job will go back to how it was.