Managing your IRIS Business Workplace

SBWP – Business Workplace

To access the IRIS Business Workplace and check for work items you must use
the SBWP Workplace transaction by any one of the three techniques shown
below.

1. Command
Window
2. Business
Workplace Icon

3. Workplace
Menu entry

Execute transaction SBWP by typing the transaction code in the Command

Window and pressing ENTER. If the Command Window is not currently visible,
open it by single clicking on the small white triangle. You may also click on the
Workplace Icon or double-click on the Workplace menu entry under the Office
folder. The key combination Ctrl+F12 also works if you prefer that approach.

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Below is a typical Business Workplace Workflow Inbox using the default display
variant. Access your Workflow work items by expanding the Inbox by clicking on
the white triangle beside the wo rd “Inbox” . When you click on the
word “Workflow” , your work items (i.e. things you need to do) are
displayed in the panel just to the right of the folder list (Folder Content Area).

Folder Content
Area

Folder
Area

Work Item
Preview
Expand the Inbox Area
and click on the
word “Workflow”

By default, work items are listed with the most recently created at the top. The
work item that is currently selected (or “in focus”) is highlighted in yellow.
Information about the selected work item is displayed in the Work Item Preview
Area. The Preview Area includes instructions about what you need to do to the
work item and a link to display the related document (object) and/or its
attachments. You can sort or group the work items in your Workplace using a
variety of techniques which will be discussed on the following pages of this
document.

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Inbox Groupings

One technique for managing a large number of work items is to Group them
according to Task as shown below:

Under the Workflow area of the Inbox are folders which can be used to group
work items by various criteria. One particularly helpful g rouping is According to
Task. The example above illustrates how one can easily focus in on a particular
type of work item (e.g. Parked Documents) by grouping the Inbox according to
task. You can think of Tasks as simply what needs to be done and the type of
document to which it should be done. For example, if you are a Campus
Business Officer (CBO), you will have separate task groupings for those work
items you receive as Campus Business Officer and those you receive as the
approver for your own Funds Center(s). Work items for Parked Documents
received under your CBO responsibilities will be grouped under Parked
Document CBO Approval whereas those for your Department Head
responsibilities are listed under Parked Document Approval. These groupings are
done automatically by the system according to the task and document types you
currently have in your Inbox.

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Changing your Display Variant

Another technique for managing your Workplace is to use a Display Variant:

To choose an alternate display variant for your Workflow Inbox, click on the
Choose Display Variant Icon of the Display Variants Icon set and select
the /VAR1 “Includes Amount & Substitute For” Display Variant. The next
page shows how the display variant affects the appearance of your Inbox.

Note: You MUST first click on the word “Workflow” under the Inbox folder
for the Display Variant to be available. This particular Display Variant is not
available if your focus (indicated by yellow highlighting) is in any other
area of the Inbox.

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Notice how the Workflow Inbox’s appearance is changed by the /VAR1 Display
Variant. Notice how two new columns are now visible: Amount and Reason and
that the work items have now been sorted in descending Amount order.

Sorted by New
Amount Amount and
Reason
Columns

Scroll bar
to access
other fields

This variant also includes fields such as “Substitute for” and “Forwarder” which
can be displayed by scrolling the horizontal bar for the Folder Content Area to the
right. These fields may be useful if you are a Substitute for other users or want to
know who may have forwarded a work item to you.

Note: Sometimes the Amount and Reason columns may not be populated
with values. If this happens, repeat the process of selecting the Display
Variant. However, some work items do not have Amounts or Reasons and
will always have blanks in these columns (e.g. Time and ECR Approval).
Furthermore, work items created before November 26, 2002 may not
include “Reason” since the programming to support that field was not
written and implemented at UT until then.

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Sorting Work Items

Another technique for managing your Workplace is to re-sort the work items by
various columns. As is the case for most IRIS displays, you can re-sort the list of
work items by clicking on the desired column heading or by clicking the Sort
Icon. In the example below the list has been sorted ascending by Work Item Title.
Notice the red triangle pointing upward at the right-most part of the Title column
heading. This indicates that the list is sorted in ascending order by that field. If
you click on the column heading again, the list will then be sorted in descending
order.

Sort
indicator

Note: If you want to sort by a combination of fields, use the Sort Icon to
specify the field list and sort sequences. Also, the column titles for
“Amount” and “Reason” may sometimes be labeled “Dynamic Column”
depending on certain combinations of work items present in your Inbox.

The following screen shows how to select sort fields.

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When you click on the Sort Icon the window shown below is displayed to
allow you to specify the fields on which you want to sort and the desired sort
sequence (i.e. ascending or descending).

Select the field on which you want to sort from the field list at the right and
transfer it to the sort fields list on the left by highlighted the desired field and
clicking the icon. Once you have selected all the fields you need, click on the
Copy Icon.

Note: The column titles for “Amount” and “Reason” may sometimes be
labeled “Dynamic Column” depending on certain combinations of work
items present in your Inbox. If this occurs, these two fields should be the
first two of the six “Dynamic Column” fields. For example, some work
items such as Time and Effort Certification do not have amounts
associated with them nor is the reason column populated. If Time and ECR
work items are present in your Inbox, you may see the dynamic column
headings change.

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Filtering Work Items

Another helpful feature of the Business Workplace is the ability to filter work
items by various columns by clicking on the Set Filter icon. This option
presents the window shown below to allow you to specify those columns on
which you want to base your filtering criteria:

Select the field on which you want to filter from the field list at the right and
transfer it to the filter criteria area on the left by highlighted the desired field and
clicking the icon. Once you have selected all the fields you need, click on the
Copy Icon.

Note: The column titles for “Amount” and “Reason” may sometimes be
labeled “Dynamic Column” depending on certain combinations of work
items present in your Inbox. If this occurs, these two fields should be the
first two of the six “Dynamic Column” fields.

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The system then will ask you enter the values for the filtering criteria:

In this example, I selected the Reason field (e.g. Funds Center value) as my
filtering criteria. When the system asked for the values for Reason, I pressed F4
to obtain a list. The system then presents a list of the Funds Centers (i.e.
Reasons) present in my Inbox from which I can select the value I want to see.

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The Inbox shown below has been filtered by Reason (i.e. Funds Center) as
indicated by the small funnel in the lower right hand corner of the column heading
(near the cursor arrow icon).

Note: Unfortunately, the field Amount does NOT work as filtering criteria.

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Saving your Workplace Settings

A time-saving feature of the Business Workplace is the ability to save your

settings when you exit. Click on the Settings option from the pull-down menu and
choose Save when you exit. When you activate this option, the system
“remembers” the various screen settings and your last location when you exited
the Workplace. This feature is particularly helpful if you tend to access the same
area of the Workplace (e.g. Workflow Inbox) every time. This way, you will no
longer have to expand the Inbox, and click on Workflow every time you return.

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