vTiger CRM features a sophisticated Project Management System that creates Projects and associated Tasks. Very few full priced CRM systems feature a fully loaded Project Management System and yet vTiger CRM gives it to you for free.
Say you create a Project called Website Updates which will have a series of tasks that are assigned to different people.
As you have seen from a previous tip, you can assign Workflows to any Module so let’s assign a Workflow to a Project Task.
Go to Settings/Workflows. Click New Workflow. From the Dropdown: Create a workflow for [Project Tasks]. Click Create:
You are presented with the choices of ‘When to run the workflow’. The choices are:
- Only on the first save.
- Until the first time the condition is true.
- Every time the record is saved.
- Every time a record is modified.
For this tip let’s choose ‘Every time the record is saved’ so that it sends an email on initial Task creation and significant updates.
You can then set the Condition of the Workflow. What is going to trigger the action?
First, give the Condition a Description: ‘Send email to Project Task Assignee’
The ‘Condition’ choices are numerous. Any aspect of the task can be used as the Condition choice but for now, let’s just trigger the workflow when a task is assigned to a specific user.
Choose: Assigned to: (Users) User Name.
You have a choice of your Condition… ‘is’, ‘contains’, ‘does not contains’, ‘starts with’, ‘ends with’.
- (Note. These conditions can change depending on the type of Condition set)
Choose: ‘is’
In the last box, enter the username of the person, eg. ChristineE
So the Condition is: ‘Assigned to: (Users) User Name’ ‘is’ ‘ChristineE’
- Note: You can set multiple conditions by adding a New Condition at this point.
Click Save.
You are now presented with a new option, so click [New Task].
You have multiple choices but for this tip, choose [Send Email].
Give the ‘Task Title’ and description: ‘Notify Assignee by Email of Project Task’
Set Status as Active
Now assign an email address to the ‘Recipient’.
You can choose the email address (assigned to the task) from the dropdown menu. You can also type in the email address.
If you want to receive a copy of emails automatically sent, you can enter your address in the CC or BCC boxes.
Now give the email a Subject line: ‘You have been assigned a new Project task’
Next you’ll see a dropdown ‘Select Option’ that provides a way to embed variables. See example email template below where I have chosen certain variables from the dropdown. Variables start with a $.
Dear $(assigned_user_id : (Users) user_name)
You have been assigned a task
Take Name: $projecttaskname
Task Description: $description
Thank you,
Your friendly task assignment webbot.
- Note: to send automated emails you’ll need cronjobs enabled. See previous tip on cronjobs.