Choice Step

In this article, we'll cover:

• Overview of the Choice Step
• Where to Find This
• Configuring Responsibility
• Defining Choices
• Configuring a Choice Step
• Examples

Overview

The Choice step presents multiple choices in order to progress through a workflow.

When defining a Choice step, you create one or more choices, each of which appears as an option for the workflow step. Each option can be connected to the next steps relevant to that choice in the workflow.

In the workflow above, a Choice step ("What type of Approval is required?") routes to one of two Approval steps based on the selected option: Requestor's Manager routes to "Requestor's Manager Approval," and Service Owner routes to "Service Owner Approval," while None bypasses approval entirely and goes straight to Complete (Approve). Both Approval steps lead to the same endpoints: Approve to Complete (Approve) and Reject to Complete (Reject).

For a complete guide to creating, configuring, and activating ticket workflows, see Configuring Ticket Workflows.

Where to Find This

The Choice step is configured in the Ticketing application admin interface, and can be viewed on a ticket with the workflow applied in Work Management and the Client Portal.

Configure the step from the Workflow Builder in the Ticketing app admin UI following these paths:

• Ticketing Application Admins Work Management > View Applications > [Name of the Ticketing application]  > gear icon > Admin > Workflows > [Workflow name] > View Builder
• Global Admins: In TDAdmin, go to Applications, then select the Ticketing application > Workflows > [Workflow name] > View Builder

Access an active workflow:

• In Work Management > View Applications > [Name of the Ticketing application] > find the ticket with the workflow applied and review the step
• In the Client Portal > Ticket Requests > open the request and review the workflow steps

Configuring Responsibility

There are two ways to assign responsibility for a Choice step: by person or group, or by role.

By selecting the Responsibility option ‘Assign to a specific resource’, you can assign a specific person or group as the responsible party. If assigned to a group, all group members who have access to the associated ticketing application may act on the step.

A client user must be individually assigned to the workflow step for them to act on it — they cannot act on Choice steps on behalf of an assigned group.

You can also choose Assign to a role, which reveals the Responsible Role field. This also requires choosing a Fallback for the Responsible Role — a person or group to assign when the role-based assignment can't be resolved to a valid person or group.

The following roles are supported for Choice steps:

• Requestor, Requestor's Manager, Requestor's Resource Pool Primary Manager, Requestor's Primary Group Manager
• Creator, Creator's Manager, Creator's Resource Pool Primary Manager, Creator's Primary Group Manager
• Responsible, Responsible's Manager, Responsible's Resource Pool Primary Manager, Responsible's Primary Group Manager
• Reviewer, Reviewer's Manager, Reviewer's Resource Pool Primary Manager, Reviewer's Primary Group Manager
• Service Owner, Service Owner's Manager, Service Owner's Resource Pool Primary Manager, Service Owner's Primary Group Manager
• Department Manager
• Any person-type custom attribute

To be valid, a variable assignment role on a Choice step must resolve to at least one of the following:

• An active user with TeamDynamix access (not a Customer)
• An active group containing at least one active user with access to the ticketing application (the group restriction mentioned above still applies)

Certain roles can result in an assignment scoped only to a group's managers:

• Any relative Primary Group Manager role
• Responsible's Manager (when Responsible is a group)
• Reviewer's Manager (when Reviewer is a group)
• Service Owner's Manager (when Service Owner is a group)

When this is the case, the group's managers still must have access to the ticketing application to act on the step on behalf of the group.

Under Choices, add each option you want the step to present. Every choice becomes its own option on the step, and each can be connected to a different next step in the workflow — this is what allows a Choice step to route a ticket down different paths depending on which option is selected.

To create a Choice step:

1. Access Workflows in the Ticketing app admin UI:
   • Ticketing Application Admins: Work Management > View Applications > Ticketing application > gear icon > Admin > Workflows
   • Global Admins: TDAdmin > Applications > Ticketing application > Workflows
2. On the Ticket Workflows list, click the Name of the desired workflow.
3. Click the View Builder button.
4. In the Workflow Builder, click File in the toolbar.
5. Select Check Out from the dropdown.
6. Click the New Step button in the toolbar.
7. In the New Workflow Step window, enter a Name that indicates what the step will do.
8. Select Choice from the Type dropdown.
9. If Stages have been configured for the workflow, optionally select one from the Stage dropdown.
10. Optionally enter a Description for the step.
11. Under Responsibility, select Assign to a specific resource to assign the step to a specific person or group, or Assign to a role to assign the step based on the ticket's relative roles.
12. If you select Assign to a role, two additional fields appear:
    • Responsible Role— select the role whose assigned person or group should be resolved when the step becomes active.
    • Fallback for Responsible Role — select a fallback person or group in case the selected role can't be resolved to a valid person or group.
13. Under Choices, click Add Choice to create an option that will appear on this step, and enter the choice's label (for example, Choice A). Repeat for each option you want the step to present.
14. Use the Sort handles to reorder choices, or the red X to delete one.
15. Under Reminder Schedule, select None, Every [ ] day(s), or Every Weekday to set how often reminder notifications go out to the assignee while the step is pending.
16. Optionally, enable Limit Notifications and enter a value in Do not send more than [ ] reminders to cap the total number sent.
17. Click Save.

Once the step is saved, connect each choice to the next step it should lead to, just as you'd connect any other step's options — learn more about adding, connecting, and validating steps in Configuring Ticket Workflows.

Examples

In the workflow below, the "Is land line required?" Choice step is configured with two options: "Required" and "Not Required". This Choice step determines whether the phone setup task chain runs. If Not Required, the workflow connects directly to the "Wait for all tasks to be completed" Collector, skipping phone setup entirely. If Required, the workflow runs through Telephone Install, Setup Voicemail, and Issue Long Distance Code in sequence, and once that chain completes, it also connects into the same Collector.

Click to open the PDF and view the workflow details.

 

For another example, this 2-minute video demonstrates how a Choice step appears to a user processing a service request and shows where this is configured in the Workflow Builder.