Workflow Stop Tasks
A stop task is a step the run cannot get past. Until it is marked complete, the work after it is held. Use it where doing things out of order is genuinely unsafe or expensive: an inspection that must pass before installation, a legal review before a contract goes out, a payment confirmed before goods are released.
The difference from an ordinary step is that ordinary steps are advice about order. People can tick them in any sequence they like. A stop task is enforced.
Turn a step into a stop task
- Open the workflow for editing.
- Click the stop task icon on the step.
- Click Enable stop task.
To undo it, open the same dialog and click Disable stop task.
How much it holds
How far a stop task reaches depends on whether you put it on a step or on a section heading, and the difference is large enough to get right first time.
- On a step, it holds the rest of the steps in its own section, and every section after it.
- On a section heading, it holds the sections that follow. The run cannot move past that section until the heading is complete.
So a stop task placed on the last step of a section and one placed on the section heading are not the same thing. Put it on the step when the block is about that specific piece of work, and on the heading when a whole phase has to finish before the next one starts.
Stop tasks and approvals
A step can be a stop task or an approval, never both. The two overlap, because an approval already holds the work after it until someone decides, so making it a stop task as well would add nothing.
If you open the stop task dialog on a step that is already an approval, it tells you so rather than offering a button that cannot work. Disable the approval first if a plain stop task is what you want.
Which to choose: a stop task when the same person doing the work can clear the block by finishing it. An approval when somebody else has to review the work and can send it back. See Adding review and approval steps.
Video walkthrough
This video walks through adding a stop task to a workflow.