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  • Product: Practice CS

Use work queues

The work queue lets your firm place work items into a queue from which qualified staff can select more work when available. If your firm is licensed for the Staff Management module, you can take advantage of this feature. To enjoy the full benefits of work queues, your firm should also be licensed for the Project Management module.

Staff qualifications

When you create a project, task, scheduled phone call, or to-do item, you can assign the item to a specific staff member, or define minimum qualifications for staff who will work on the item and place the item into the work queue.
Staff members who meet the qualifications for the work item can see the item in the Work Queue portlet on their Staff Dashboard. Firm administrators or staff with access to the Manage Staff screen can assign items from the work queue to qualified staff members. Staff can also request the next available item from the work queue by selecting it in the Schedule Items portlet on the Staff Dashboard.

Adding items to the work queue

You can add the following items to the work queue:
  • Projects (requires Project Management license)
  • Tasks (requires Project Management license)
  • Scheduled phone calls
  • To-Do items
The process of adding an item to the work queue is similar for all relevant work items.
You can set qualifications and define projects and tasks as work queue items at the template level, or later on an item-by-item basis. Scheduled phone calls and to-do items are assigned on an item-by-item basis.
To add an item to a work queue, follow these steps.
  1. Open the item. The item could be a project template, task template, individual project, individual task, scheduled phone call, or to-do item.
  2. In the Assigned section, select a qualifications filter in the
    Staff qualifications
     field.
    note
    • If an appropriate filter doesn’t exist, select the more ellipsis button and create a new filter. Qualifications filters typically are based on Skill Sets.
    • You're not required to select a qualifications filter. If you add an item to the work queue without qualifications, it will be available for all staff to select.
  3. Select the
    Work queue
     option to designate the item as a work queue item.
  4. Select
    OK
     or
    Enter
     to save your changes to the item.
The item is added to the work queue and is visible to those staff who are included in the qualifications filter you selected.

Adding multiple items to the work queue

You can add multiple projects or tasks to the work queue at once by following these steps.
  1. On the Manage Project screen, hold
    SHIFT
     or
    CTRL
     while selecting multiple projects or tasks.
  2. Right-click and select
    Edit Selected Projects
     (or
    Edit Selected Tasks
    ).
  3. Select
    Change Project information
    .
  4. Select
    Next
    .
  5. In the 1st dropdown, select
    Staff Qualification
    .
  6. Select the qualifications filter you want to apply to the selected items.
    note
    If you want the project or task to be available to all staff, skip the previous 2 steps.
  7. Select
    Add Row
     and select
    Staff Assigned/Work Queue
     from the 1st field in the new row.
  8. In the next field, select
    Work queue
    .
  9. Select
    Finish
    .

Selecting items from the work queue

Qualified staff that work on items in the work queue can view the queue using the Work Queue portlet on the Staff Dashboard. When a staff member selects an item from the queue, the item is removed from the work queue and added to that staff member’s assigned items.
To select an item from the work queue, follow these steps.
  1. Select the person with green shirt icon to open the Staff Dashboard.
  2. If necessary, add the Work Queue portlet to the dashboard. If items appear in your Work Queue portlet, you can be assigned those items.
  3. Select one or more items in the Work Queue portlet and select
    Assign Selected to Me
     at the bottom of the portlet.
You can also request the next item from the work queue using the Schedule Items portlet. This process simply assigns you the next available item for which you are qualified, regardless of what it is.
  1. Select the Person with green shirt icon to open the Staff Dashboard.
  2. If necessary, add the Schedule Items portlet to the dashboard.
  3. Select
    Assign Next in Work Queue
     to assign the next item in the work queue. The item is added to your assigned items and will appear in the Schedule Items portlet.

Administering the work queue

Staff with security user rights for the Manage Staff screen can administer the work queue from this screen. You can manually assign open, unassigned items to available and qualified staff. You can also place open items that are assigned to a staff member back in the work queue. Right-click the item and select
Assign to
 then
Work Queue
.

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