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How to: Using the Tasks Tool

Viewing and using the Tasks tool in Thoropass

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Written by Michael Rothbaum
Updated over 3 months ago

Related Article – Thoropass Task Management: Redesigned and Enhanced

Summary

The Tasks management tool acts as a platform-wide to-do list for everything that needs to be done in Thoropass.

    1. For Admins, tasks are broken into Program Tasks, Employee Education, and Assigned to Me; Non-Admins only see Assigned to Me

    2. Data Visualizations give Admins a clear, high-level overview

  1. Actions on the Tasks Table: Admins can update assignee, update due date, and send a reminder to the assignee one at a time or in bulk

  2. Task Types: There are distinct task types within tasks with their own unique set of attributes

  3. The tasks table can be filtered and searched

  4. Tasks appear on main Dashboard

Task Navigation

For Admin users, who can see all tasks to assigned to any user and all unassigned tasks on the platform, the Tasks page will be broken into 3 sections:

  1. Program Tasks – containing the following types:

  2. Employee Education – containing the following types:

  3. Assigned to Me – a combination of Program Tasks and Employee Education, assigned to the logged in user

Non-Admin users will not see these tabs as they can only view tasks assigned to themself. Their experience will be limited to "Assigned to Me"

Data Visualizations

Within "Program Tasks" Admins will be able to view the following data visualizations:

  • KPIs: Displays the number of overdue tasks, upcoming tasks, and unassigned tasks.

  • Pie Chart: Shows a breakdown of task types, helping you keep track of different categories.

  • Bar Chart: Displays task assignments by user and due status (e.g., no due date, due soon, due later, overdue).

Actions on the Tasks Table

Tasks can now have their assignee and due date updated (where applicable, see rules in Task Types details).

Single Actions

Actions can be taken on a single task by clicking the corresponding icon where:

  • Calendar: Update Due Date

  • Person + Pencil: Update Assignee

  • Bell: Send Reminder

The action will be missing for task types where that action is not allowed.

Bulk Actions

By clicking the checkbox next to one or multiple tasks, you'll be able to make bulk changes. Note that an action will only appear if that action is applicable for all task types selected. For example, if you select an action item type where the assignee can be updated, as well a policy type task where assignee cannot be updated, you won't the see "Change Assignee" action appear.

Task Types

There are several "task types" that can appear on the tasks list. Additionally, with the recent updates to Tasks, several task types can now be updated directly from the tasks page.

Action Item

For most accounts, action items make up the majority of tasks on the task page in the "Program Task" category, particularly when a given framework is in "Implementation" mode. The action item task type comes from the Control. While an action item can appear on multiple Controls, the Control we display on the Tasks page is the one you'll be forwarded to when clicking the task.

  • Category: Program Task

  • Task created on: At the same time as the action item

  • Assigned to: Same as action item (or unassigned if no action item assignee)

  • Due date: Same as action item (or no due date if no due date has been added)

  • How to Complete: Complete action item

  • Can Update Assignee: ✅ Yes

  • Can Update Due Date: ✅ Yes

  • Can Send Reminder: ✅ Yes

Policy

There are up to 3 types of policy tasks that can appear on the tasks page.

Review and Publish Policy

This policy type task is auto-generated 90 days before the 1 year anniversary of the last time this policy was updated with a due date on the anniversary. For example, if the latest version of Policy A was published on July 15, 2024, a task will appear on April 16, 2025 with a due date of July 15, 2025. The task will be assigned to the policy Owner.

  • Category: Program Task

  • Task created on: 90 days before 1 year anniversary of last publish date

  • Assigned to: Policy owner

  • Due date: 1-year anniversary of last published date

  • How to Complete: Publish a new version of the policy

  • Can Update Assignee: ❌ No

  • Can Update Due Date: ❌ No

  • Can Send Reminder: ✅ Yes

Review Policy Publish Approval Request

This task will only appear if Approvals has been enabled for your company's policies (note approvals can be enabled or disabled within "Settings" on the Policy overview page). When Approvals are enabled, the policy can only be published if the approver accepts the changes.

  • Category: Program Task

  • Task created on: Immediately upon owner submitting approval

  • Assigned to: Policy approver

  • Due date: Defaults to the day after the publish has been requested

  • How to Complete: Approve/publish OR request changes

  • Can Update Assignee: ❌ No

  • Can Update Due Date: ✅ Yes

  • Can Send Reminder: ✅ Yes

Review Changes Request for Policy

Just like like, "Review Policy Publish Approval Request", this task will only appear if Approvals has been enabled for your company's policies. This task will only generate if the approver did not accept the changes and has requested changes be made.

  • Category: Program Task

  • Task created on: Immediately upon approver requesting changes

  • Assigned to: Policy owner

  • Due date: Defaults to the day after the approver requested changes

  • How to Complete: [Re]submit for approval

  • Can Update Assignee: ❌ No

  • Can Update Due Date: ✅ Yes

  • Can Send Reminder: ✅ Yes

Integration [Connection]

Integration tasks get generated when there is something wrong with the connection of an underlying integration connection, i.e.. the account used to create the connection does not have permission to connect or the connections credentials are invalid.

  • Category: Program Task

  • Task created on: Immediately on violation detection

  • Assigned to: Integration connection owner

  • Due date: Same day

  • How to Complete: Resolve connection violations

  • Can Update Assignee: ✅ Yes

  • Can Update Due Date: ✅ Yes

  • Can Send Reminder: ✅ Yes

Monitor

Monitor tasks appear very similar to Integration Connection tasks, as monitors are mostly powered by external integrations. Therefore, you may see a Integration and Monitor tasks that point to the same root cause. However, we've chosen to break out Integration and Monitor issues into distinct tasks to provide visibility and accountability into the impact on the system.


Monitor tasks are generated for 2 reasons:

  1. When the underlying connection that powers the monitor is either in violation, e.g. the monitor for "S3 buckets have versioning enabled" has detected that there is at least 1 S3 bucket does not have versioning enabled.

  2. When the underlying connection is not configured properly to let the monitor function – i.e., the account used to create the connection does not have permission to get the data that the monitor needs

  • Category: Program Task

  • Task created on: Immediately on violation detection

  • Assigned to: Integration owner

  • Due date: Next day

  • How to Complete: Resolve underlying connection violations or deactivate monitor

  • Can Update Assignee: ✅ Yes

  • Can Update Due Date: ✅ Yes

  • Can Send Reminder: ✅ Yes

"Integration owner" is a new field we're in the process of introducing based off of the "integration connection owner" – the user whose credentials were used to create a particular connection of that integration.

For companies where only 1 user's credentials were used, that user has been set as the "integration owner." For companies where more than 1 user has created a connection for an integration, we've chosen 1 user to be the "integration owner."

Access Review

For more detail about Access Reviews and their corresponding tasks, click here.

Evidence Request

Evidence requests are a the newest addition to the tasks page. Like "action items," tasks of this task types will appear in large quantity, but instead during audit as opposed to "Implementation."

  • Category: Program Task

  • Task created on: At the same time as the evidence request

  • Assigned to: Same as evidence request (or unassigned if no action item assignee)

  • Due date: N/A (evidence requests don't have due dates)

  • How to Complete: Complete evidence request

  • Can Update Assignee: ✅ Yes

  • Can Update Due Date: N/A (evidence requests don't have due dates)

  • Can Send Reminder: ✅ Yes

Training and Acknowledgement

Training and Acknowledgements are two distinct task types that are grouped together in this documentation as they essentially function the same from the task perspective. These task types do not appear in Program Tasks. You can view all open Training and Acknowledgments tasks in the new "Employee Education" tab.

  • Category: Employee Education Task

  • Task created on: Immediately upon publish/hire

  • Assigned to: Each individual training and acknowledgement assignee

  • Due date: Per training / acknowledgement

  • How to Complete: Complete training / acknowledgement

  • Can Update Assignee: ❌ No

  • Can Update Due Date: ❌ No

  • Can Send Reminder: ✅ Yes

Filtering and Searching on the Table

  • Assignee: The user assigned the task or unassigned; only applicable to Admins and available in the "Program Tasks" and "Employee Education" tabs

  • Framework: This filter currently only applies to action item type tasks, identifying the framework(s) action item is tied to

  • Task Type: On task type, see list above

  • Task Attribute

    • Synced to Jira (only applies applies to action item type tasks, synced to Jira via Two-Way Sync)

    • Recurring (applies to action item type tasks, those that are recurring)

With the newly introduced "Search" functionality, the user can find a task by name/description.

Tasks on the Dashboard

For Admins, the Tasks Dashboard has three sections:

  • Total Action Items in your Org: Click to load the Tasks page – Program Tasks

  • Tasks Assigned to you: Click to load "Assigned to Me"

  • The three tasks with the nearest deadline assigned to the user

For non-Admins, the Tasks Dashboard shows:

  • The total number of Tasks assigned to the current user

  • Three tasks assigned to the current user with the nearest deadline

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