Assign people to specific tasks
Manifestly has three ways to put a step in front of the right person. Runs inherit everything from their workflow, so an assignment made in the workflow is already applied in every run that starts afterwards.
The three ways
- To a role, in the workflow. The step belongs to a job, and each run decides who holds it. This is the one to reach for first. See Role based assignments.
- To a named person, in the workflow. The same person gets the step in every run. See Assigning steps in a workflow.
- To a person, in one run. Changes who does the work for that run only, leaving the workflow and every other run alone. See Assigning steps in a run.
Which one to use
Start in the workflow, and prefer a role. A workflow whose steps are assigned to roles survives people joining, leaving and swapping jobs without anyone editing it. A workflow assigned to named people needs maintenance every time the team changes, and the symptom is always the same: work quietly sitting with somebody who left.
Use per-run assignment for the exceptions, which is what it is good at: cover during leave, a hand-off mid-run, a run that needs a specialist the workflow cannot know about in advance.
Assigning people to the run itself
Being a participant on a run and being assigned a step are different things. A participant can see and work the run; an assignee has a particular step on their list and is notified about it. See The difference between participants and assignments.
Video walkthrough
This video walks through creating step assignments and tracking them.