Customize your progressions to automatically set due dates for tickets, prompt a Sales Rep get the value of a prospective sale, or update the expiration date of retainers when they’re activated by adding Update Field action to your status change.
The Update Field action allows you to choose a field from the related object to display to the user during a progression. Ideally the user will see that field and realise they need to enter/update some details.
The fields available include standard fields from the object (such as the due date for an issue), profile fields for that object and custom fields for that object type.
To create an Update Field action:
Find the progression you want to add an Update Field action for, and then select this option from the drop-down list on the right-hand side.
The Create Progression Action Field screen will appear.
Select the field to be updated from the drop-down list. You will find standard fields plus any custom or profile fields you have configured.
Optionally enter an alternative title to describe the purpose of this field to the user. E.g. As simple as "Assign Manager" or “Who’s in Charge until Completion?”, whatever makes the most sense to your flow.
Select a default value for this field to be displayed to the user (optional).
Required - this indicates whether the user must enter the field or whether they can leave it blank.
Hidden - this indicates whether the user will be able to see and update the field, or whether the update will occur in the background.
Once saved, your newly configured action will appear underneath the progression:
In the image above, the Scope progression is configured with a Manager field as previously described.
This will be similar to the Progression Action: Update Fields guide, but we felt this feature deserved its own page, because there are a lot of scenarios where it may add value to help track service level agreements or other milestones. There can also be powerful interplay with Triggers in regards to updating Date fields.
The most useful and encourage function is that automatically setting a date field to be x days from “today” (when the progression is triggered).. You can even set the field to be hidden, this is to either better automated or so the staff advancing the progression won’t adjust the date.
Let's look at applying this progression action for an issue type as an example:
If for example, you want the due date (or deadline) to be set once the issue is "opened" - but instead of asking the user to confirm the date, you can automatically set the date to be 7 days from "now" (the moment the issue is opened). This will ensure the Issue will be due 7 days from creation.
To automatically set this date:
Select Update Field Action.
Select the field to be updated, in this example we’ll be choosing a Date field.
Deadline is a date field (essentially, the due date of the issue), but you can change the name of this field (in the Alternative Title) for the sake of the progression - to help the user understand what they are filling in.
Use the Default Value option to select "Today + (days)", and then type in the number of days which added. This means, if the user runs the progression on March 3rd, the Deadline field will be defaulted to “March 3rd + (days)”. In the example above, the resulting Deadline would be March 10th.
If the field is required, the user cannot continue until a date is selected.
If the field is hidden then the date will automatically be set according to the "Today + Days" value. The user will not even see the field in the progression. - in which case, the Alternative Title and Required options are ignored.
Click Save to confirm your options. As soon as you save, this change will be active.
The end result of the configurations we just laid out as an example, would be that every time any Issue is Opened, it will automatically have a due date set to 7 days from when it was Opened. It will happen automatically, and hidden from view during the creation process.