Action Plans are an incident management tool, integrated into Incident Reports. It can be used to organise the handling of incidents by creating and assigning plans to individuals of the platform, and subsequently marking those plans as complete – ensuring a further level of accountability in the tool.
This functionality is only available for incident types that have the Action Plan option turned on (see Creating an Incident Report for more information).
Accessing the Action Plan Page
Between an incident being submitted, and it being followed up, assigned managers have the ability to manage its Action Plans. If the incident has been escalated, then those managers that have been nominated to handle such escalated incidents will also be able to manage its Action Plans.
Inside of the Incident Reports tool, there will be a section titled Incidents Requiring My Attention, listing all the submitted incidents where you are either an assigned or assigned escalation manager. Click on the name of a report here, and then click on the Action Plan button. This will lead you to the Action Plan page.
This page lists some quick details regarding the selected incident, as well as any Action Plans that currently exist for the incident.
Creating an Action Plan
From this page, you can create Action Plans by clicking the New Action button. Doing so will take you to the New Action page, where you can enter details about the action. Once created, the details entered here will be visible to anyone with access to the Action Plan page, the assignee, assigned managers & escalation managers of the incident.
Options
- Action Required – This text area allows Managers to enter any details about the action that should be performed by the assignee.
- By Whom – This is an autocomplete field that will allow you to enter the name of the user that this plan should be directed at. Autocomplete fields such as this one will search for and show a list of users of the platform that match the text entered into the field (minimum of three characters). Only users within your branch of the hierarchy can be entered into this field.
- Due – Date entry field for entering the date by which the described plan should be completed.
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Complete– Checkbox that indicates whether or not the action has been completed. Turning on this option will reveal a further set of options:
- Completion Note – User that marks this action as complete will be able to enter any related comments into this text area.
- Attachments – File upload field, allowing for the upload of up to 10 files. Mouse over the information icon for details regarding allowed file types and size limits.
- Completed By – An autocomplete field that allows you to enter the name of the user that completed the actions described in this plan.
- Completed Date – Date entry field for entering the date that the plan was executed.
- Save – Button used to create the Action Plan.
Handling the Action Plan
Once an Action Plan has been created, that plan can then be completed by a Manager of that incident, or by the assignee of the action. Managers can do so from the Action Plan page described above. Non-managers that have action items assigned to them can access these items in a number of ways.
Accessing Action Items as Assignee
One way to access the plan is via notifications in the header (see screenshot below).
Any action items requiring your attention will also be listed in the My Tasks widget on your dashboard.
Clicking on the notification in either of these places will take you directly to your list of action items.
Alternatively, you can view your Action Items by going to the Incident Reports tool (Operations > Incident Reports), and then clicking My Action Items.
Completing the Action Plan
From this point, you are able to click the Edit button on the item that is to be completed. On this page, checking the Complete option will reveal a further set of options to be filled (see Options under the Creating an Action Plan section above).
Once this information has been entered, click the Update button and the action will have been completed.