There may be instances where several members of a team work together to share the workload. As such, you may not necessarily want to assign the task to specific team member. Inspire Planner allows you to assign tasks to a queue and members of the queue are able to see the task and update them.

Queues allow groups of users to manage a shared workload more effectively. Queues are like holding areas where tasks can sit until it is assigned to a specific user (resource).
 

A typical use-case where queues are used is with a support team. Help tickets are usually submitted to the support team as a group instead of a specific team member.  Members of the support team can then see all the tasks that are in the queue. Usually, a task in the queue is then re-assigned to a specific team member to then complete.

This help article will walk you through how to set up queues in Salesforce, how to assign tasks to a queue and how to re-assign them.

• Create a Queue
• Assign Tasks to a Queue
  • Manually Assigning Tasks to a Queue
  • Auto Assign Tasks to a Queue based on Role
• Re-assigning Queue Tasks to a Resource

Create a Queue

In order for you to be able to assign tasks to a queue, you would first need to create queues. This section will walk you through how to create queues in Salesforce.

1. Click on the Gear Icon at the top right corner and go to Setup.
   
   
    
2. Enter "queues" in the Quick Find box and click on Queues.
   
   
    
3. Click on New.
   
   
    
4. Populate the information below.
   
   
   
   1. Label (Required) - enter the name of the queue. The Queue Name will automatically populate when you move your cursor away from the Label.
   
   2. Queue Email (optional) - you can choose to have an email notification sent to the email address you enter in this field.
   
   3. Send Email to Members (optional) - check this box if you would like an email notification sent to the members of this queue. 
   
   4. Supported Objects - select Task from the list of Available Objects.
   
   5. Queue Members - you will need to select the users that are to be members of the queue.
   
   Once you've populated all the information for the queue, click on Save.

Assign Tasks to a Queue

Once you've created Queues, you can now assign tasks to them. This section will walk you through how to assign tasks to a Queue. You can choose to manually assign tasks to a queue or use the auto task assignment based on Role.
 

Manually Assigning Tasks to a Queue
 

1. Double click on the Assigned To cell and click on the search icon.
   
   
    
2. Select Queue as the filter, enter the name of the queue and click on Search.
   
   
    
3. Select the queue and click on Assign Task.
   
   
    
4. Click on Close.
   
   
   
   The Task is now assigned to the queue you selected.
   
   
    

Auto Assign Tasks to a Queue Based on Role

This section will walk you through how to automatically assign tasks to a queue using Project Teams and Roles. To be able to mass assign tasks, you must first populate the Role for the tasks in the Project. Role is the role responsible for completing the task. Once you've specified the Roles for each Task, follow the steps below.

1. From the Project Schedule, click on the Team tab.
   
   
    
2. Click on New.
   
   
    
3. Enter the queue name in the Queue Name field and specify the Role. The Queue name must be an exact match as it is not a look-up field. Then click on Save.
   
   
   
   The Tasks within the Project with the same Role will automatically be assigned to the Queue. You will need to manually refresh the page to see the assignments.
   
   

Re-assigning Queue Tasks to a Resource

When Project Tasks are assigned to a Queue, an equivalent Salesforce Task is also created. The Salesforce Task is assigned to the Queue and members of the Queue are able to see it.

As mentioned in the beginning of this article, Queues are like holding areas where tasks can sit until a specific user picks them up or until a specific user is assigned to the task. This section will walk you through how to re-assign a Task from a Queue to a specific resource. 

Please note the following:

• It is recommended that re-assigning Tasks should always be done from the Project. Tasks assigned to Queues are the exception. For Tasks assigned to Queues, they can be re-assigned either from the Project or by updating the Salesforce Task.
   
• Salesforce Tasks assigned to a Queue do not display in the Resource Allocation page until they are re-assigned to a specific user (resource).

1. Open the Salesforce Task assigned to the Queue. Click on the Edit icon beside Assigned To.
   
   
    
2. Click on the X beside the Queue Name to remove the Queue.
   
   
    
3. Search for and select the user you would like to assign the Task to.
   
   
    
4. You will also need to update the Resource Name with the name of the user. Then click on Save.
   
   The updates you make to the Task assignment is also visible within the Project schedule so Project Managers are able to see which specific resource was/is assigned to the task.