The task pattern is a specialisation of the basic worker pattern that presents the worker as a task that can be included in a project plan. It adds the following to the basic worker pattern:
- A series of standard task phases that record progress through the task. These are generally translated into the worker status, but can be independent of the worker status.
- Maintenance of planned and actual start and finish dates.
- A hold indicator, to show that a task is temporarily on hold.
- Maintenance and use of the parent task and sequence fields of the worker to manage the task as part of a work breakdown structure.
- Maintenance of dependencies between tasks, to ensure that a series of related tasks are carried out in order.
- A mechanism for tasks to publish messages that can be picked up by other tasks or the containing folder.
- Support for both owner-only tasks and for collaborative tasks.
- Task assignment, i.e. selection of partner connections after task initiation, including support for partners to decline work.
- Task validation and rework.
The task pattern is maintained through a number of components.
- Task Script provides the underlying task functionaliuty.
- Task step type allows task functionality to be included in worker processes.
- Task group step type is a group-level step type for visualising and maintaining a project plan.
These components are combined into processes in the Relay product, and these processes can be used as the basis of more specialised components in other solutions.