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Monitor and Manage External Tasks

The Process Explorer provides a dedicated External Tasks view. It lists every active and historical external user task across all process instances in a single place. From there, open approvals can be tracked, missing responses can be nudged, and entire batches of tasks can be adjusted in a single step.

This ensures that no external request slips through the cracks and that later process changes can still be applied to tasks that are already running.

Why this is useful

External tasks are typically sent by email to people outside Pantarey. Without a central overview, it is unclear which tasks are still open, which have been delivered, and where a follow-up is needed. The External Tasks view closes that gap.

What is shown?

An external user task is a task modeled in a BPMN process as an external user task. The recipient gets a link to a public Pantarey page and can — for example — approve a request or review a document, without owning a Pantarey account.

For each of these task tickets the list shows:

  • Status — pending, completed, cancelled, or expired
  • Recipient — the email address the task was sent to
  • Task — the display name from the BPMN
  • Reference — the related business label value
  • Timestamps — created and expiry date
  • Reminders — the number of reminders already sent

Filters and search

The filter bar narrows down the list:

  • Status — e.g. show only pending tasks
  • Activity — all tasks of a specific BPMN activity (e.g. only „Approval supplier")
  • Recipient — full-text search across the email address

Filters can be combined. Reset clears all filters, Refresh reloads the list.

Task details

The detail icon on a row opens a dialog with all technical information for that task:

  • Identification — token, activity ID, BPMN ID
  • Recipient and delivery channel
  • Public page — copy link and open directly
  • Timestamps — created, expiry, and completion if applicable
  • Reminders — list of reminders already sent
  • Process link — jump to the related process instance

If something is unclear later, this view shows exactly when which notification was sent to whom.

Single-row actions

Depending on the task status, several actions are available in the action column:

Open process instance

Jumps directly to the related process instance in the Process Explorer. Useful to see the surrounding context of the task.

Copy public link / Open public page

The recipient link can be copied to the clipboard or opened in a new tab. This is useful to verify what the recipient currently sees, or to share the link through another channel manually.

Resend

Sends the notification to the original recipient again. Available for pending tasks. Typical reasons:

  • The original email ended up in the spam folder.
  • The recipient lost the link and asks for it again.
  • A reminder is needed for an open task.

The resend uses the same public link — the running task is not replaced, only the notification is repeated.

Apply templates from current BPMN

If the process was adjusted in the designer (e.g. the task or success page was reworked, an action button was added, or the email template changed), a running external task can be brought up to date retroactively.

How it works:

  • From the currently deployed BPMN, the task page, success page, already-completed page, expired page, cancelled page, the actions, and the email template are pulled.
  • The recipient's public page is re-rendered and transparently replaced.
  • NO new notification is sent.

In short: The recipient does not notice anything, but will see the updated version the next time they open the link.

Prerequisite

The change must first be deployed as a new process version. Plain working versions from the designer are not sufficient — the currently deployed version is always used.

Cancel task

Cancels the external task. Important: This also stops the related process instance. The next time the recipient opens the link, the „cancelled" page is shown and no response is possible anymore.

Use this action when:

  • The task is no longer relevant (e.g. the customer cancelled by phone).
  • An email was sent to the wrong address by accident.
  • A process needs to be set up from scratch.

Bulk actions

Every single-row action that applies to pending tasks can also be executed for multiple tasks at once.

How to select

The checkbox at the start of each row marks individual tasks. The header checkbox marks every eligible task in the current view — that is, every task in a state where the bulk action can be applied. As soon as something is selected, the action bar appears with three buttons:

  • Resend for all selected pending tasks.
  • Sync templates for all selected pending tasks.
  • Cancel for all selected pending tasks.

What happens during processing

For larger batches the processing runs sequentially, one task at a time. This is intentional — it keeps the load low and prevents an own mail server from being overloaded by parallel requests.

While processing is running, a progress overlay is shown:

  • Current progress (e.g. „17 of 42 processed")
  • Number of failures so far
  • Stop button — processing halts after the current task; tasks that have already been handled stay handled.

When processing finishes, a summary is shown:

  • All successful: „X tasks processed successfully."
  • Partial: „X successful, Y failed."
  • Stopped: „X done, Y failed, Z skipped."

Do not close the window

The browser window should stay open during bulk processing. Closing it early behaves like a stop — tasks already in flight finish, the remaining ones are not processed.

Typical scenarios

Situation Recommended action
A recipient cannot find the email. Single: Resend.
Several recipients did not respond — send a reminder after one week. Bulk: filter status „Pending", select, Resend.
A typo in the task page (e.g. wrong contact) should also apply to tasks that are already running. Deploy the BPMN, then bulk: Sync templates.
A customer cancelled by phone. Single: Cancel task.
An entire batch should be stopped because of a wrong attachment. Bulk: filter by activity, select, Cancel.

Notes

  • Actions are only visible to authorized users. The required roles depend on the tenant's permission setup.
  • Cancelling an external task always also stops the related process instance — there is no „cancel the task only, keep the process running" path.
  • Syncing templates does not send a notification — the recipient only sees the change the next time they open the public page.
  • Tasks that already expired (EXPIRED) or completed (COMPLETED) cannot be resent, cancelled, or synced — they are part of the history.