Skip to main content

We set up our 1040 work template using roles for the different sections of our template.  We added automators to re-assign the work when a section was completed to a “role”.  Karbon allows that.  We typically do not know which staff member to assign a section to ahead of time.  It would normally be assigned in the order the return information is received from our clients.  So using “roles” made sense.  But when we added the template to a client and created work, there is an error message that work cannot be assigned to a role.  So, our work has invalid automators and warnings.

We have thought that we should consider leaving the invalid and warning automators as is. Since the brightly colored warnings bring the attention to whomever is picking up the work to also edit the automator to assign the work to themselves.  We also have thought about a work around where we might add a karbon user that is not a real person, but a holding spot for unassigned work.

How do other firms handle the work assignment transitions for processes like this?  We had originally thought we could filter the kanban by roles so that we could see work items that are waiting for assignment, but that does not seem to be an option.

I am a new user this tax season.  Any help or thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Hi @Terri Svihla!

We have this same situation and we like it very much. 😀 As soon as you assign someone to the work’s role on the details tab, the automation will work as expected. Here’s screenshot of one of our Individual Income Tax returns (USA) details page:

Notice how the Tax Preparer is unassigned. That’s on purpose for the reason you stated in your post. We get automation errors, but they go away as soon as the role is assigned.

We like the system so far, but I’m curious to read how other people approach this.

Does that help at all?

We have a place holder  colleague called Tax Placeholder that we assign to the Tax Associate role in our work items.  When all the documents have been received, the Admin assigned to the work updates the task to reassign this role to the appropriate person and then check’s their box for intake.  This triggers the automators and work moves along.

Our main Tax Work items have three roles - Admin, Tax Associate and Reviewer - The Admin and Review are know so we assign those roles at creation to the appropriate person.  The Tax Associate can change so that role is assigned to Tax Placeholder and then updated.

This allows you to view all work assigned to this “Person” by filtering your work view by assignee.  This has been super helpful.

Thank you DianeK and max for your answers.  It made me feel better knowing that others have struggled and found solutions also!  I will be considering how your ideas may work for us and respond back here.  Before seeing your responses we did decide to decide to use statuses as our mode for managing work from the kanban and set those up as our automators.  We have separated our 1040 process into several stages and use automators to change the status as the returns move through the process.  I definitely will share my feedback here when I have an idea how that will work and/or what the shortcomings may be and also consider incorporating your ideas.  Thanks again!

We have a place holder  colleague called Tax Placeholder that we assign to the Tax Associate role in our work items. 

 

Hi Diane

We’re dealing with this issue now - can you tell me how you create a ‘place holder colleague’ - does Karbon charge for an additional colleague?

Many thanks

Rob

 

 

Hi Diane

We’re dealing with this issue now - can you tell me how you create a ‘place holder colleague’ - does Karbon charge for an additional colleague?

Many thanks

Rob

@Rob Lile I’m not Diane but we use this method as well! As long as no-one accepts the invite, the user won’t be added to a subscription (screenshot from here), but you can add them to work/tasks.

 

Hey Rob,

 

We create a new colleague in the Settings menu with a fake email address. Since it was never activated, we have not been charged for a new user. We also have Fake Person, who we reassign work to when an employee is offboarded. 

 

 

Reply


Badge winners

Show all badges
Terms & ConditionsCookie settings