User Tasks

What are User Tasks?

User tasks are jobs or tasks that are assigned to a specific user to perform. They can be manually created and assigned by another user or generated by OpenDataDSL as a manual task that needs to be performed based on a specific event happening.

Task categories

A task has a category - there are a number of pre-defined system categories which indicate the nature of the task that needs to be performed. Users can add whatever category they like on a task to be assigned to another user, but it is always best to define a naming convention for your own user tasks to aid navigation.

Pre-defined task categories

The current set of pre-defined task categories are shown in the table below:

Category	Description
Process: Technical Failure	A general technical failure caused a process to fail to execute
Process: Timed Out	A process timed out and therefore failed
Process: Extract Failure	An ETL process failed during the extract phase
Process: Transform Failure	An ETL process failed during the transform phase
Process: Load Failure	An ETL process failed during the load phase
Quality: Failure	A quality check was performed and failed, the object was not saved to the database
Quality: Warning	A quality check was performed and failed, the object was written and a failed quality status was added
Workflow: Task	A generic manual task in a workflow

Anatomy of a user task

A task contains the following properties:

Name	Type	Description
user	String	The user assigned to the task
created	Date	The timestamp when the task was initially created
category	String	The category of the task
description	String	A descriptive name for the task
assignedBy	String	The user or system that assigned the task to the user
complete	Boolean	A flag indicating that the task is complete
completed	Date	The timestamp when the task was completed
notify	Boolean	A flag to indicate that the user should be notified by email
*	Any	You can add any other properties onto the task

Creating a Task

You can manually create tasks to assign to users as shown in the code snippets below:

OpenDataDSL

// Creating using a basic task
q1 = Task()
q1.category = "Task: Sales"
q1.description = "Send quote to ABC Ltd"
q1.user = "john@example.com"

// Add any custom properties
q1.reference = "ABC123"

// Save to the database
save ${task: q1}

REST API

POST https://api.opendatadsl.com/api/task/v1
Authorization: Bearer {{token}}

{
    "user": "john@example.com",
    "category": "Task: Sales",
    "description": "Send quote to ABC Ltd",
    "reference": "ABC123"
}

Listing Tasks

OpenDataDSL

// Finding tasks assigned to me
tasks = find ${task} where user=${user:"me"}.email
print tasks

REST API

GET https://api.opendatadsl.com/api/task/v1?user=john@example.com
Authorization: Bearer {{token}}

Reading a Specific Task

All tasks are assigned a unique id, when you list the tasks you can see that id and read that specific task using the id.

Example task:

{
  "_type": "VarTask",
  "_id": "6368dacce8f3186ff70e02b3",
  "created": "2022-11-07T10:15:40",
  "user": "john@example.com",
  "category": "Task: Sales",
  "description": "Send quote to ABC Ltd",
  "assignedBy": "info@opendatadsl.com",
  "complete": false,
  "notify": true,
  "reference": "ABC123",
  "_links": {}
}

OpenDataDSL

// Get a task using the unique id
task = ${task:"6368dacce8f3186ff70e02b3"}
print task

REST API

GET https://api.opendatadsl.com/api/task/v1/6368dacce8f3186ff70e02b3
Authorization: Bearer {{token}}

Completing a Task

One your work on a task is complete, you can mark it as complete using the following method.

OpenDataDSL

// Get a task using the unique id
task = ${task:"6368dacce8f3186ff70e02b3"}

// Set the complete flag to true 
task.complete = true
save ${task: task}

REST API

POST https://api.opendatadsl.com/api/task/v1
Authorization: Bearer {{token}}

{
    "_id": "6368dacce8f3186ff70e02b3",
    "complete": true
}