How to create and configure a Routine
Collection Routines allow you to organize recurring data collections: a Routine groups Tasks (form + periodicity) and defines which Collaborators must perform the collections in each window (period). Learn more about what Collection Routines are.
To create and edit routines, you need the manage routines permission in the workspace, and the Routines feature must be enabled in the workspace plan. Collaborators who only have the view permission can follow the results through Monitoring, but cannot create or change routines.
Before you start, make sure the active workspace is the one in which you want to create the routine: just like forms, the routine will belong to the workspace that is active at the time of its creation.
Click here and see more details on how to change the active workspace.
1. Create the routine
- Go to Routines, available in the Main Menu;
- Click to create a new routine;
- Enter the routine name and the start date;
- Save the routine.
The routines screen is divided into two parts:
- On the left: the list of routines in the workspace, with search and pagination;
- On the right: the details of the selected routine, with its tasks and its collaborators.
2. Understand the start date
The routine only starts generating windows and demands from the start date onwards. It is from this date that the activities begin to appear in My Activities and that the system starts tracking the collections of each window.
Important rules about the start date:
- It cannot be in the past at the time of creation or modification;
- It can be changed as long as the routine still has no collection recorded;
- After the first recorded collection, the start date becomes locked: in the edit dialog, the field appears disabled, with a notice explaining the reason.
Windows prior to the start date (or to the period in which the routine was disabled) never generate activities or "Not Executed" activity records. The routine tracking starts from that point forward.
3. Define the collaborators
The routine collaborators are the people who will see the pending activities in My Activities and whose collections count towards the routine tasks.
- With the routine selected, locate the collaborators area in the routine details;
- Open the collaborator selection;
- Check or uncheck the desired collaborators — the workspace owner is indicated in the list;
- Save the selection.
It is also possible to remove a collaborator directly from the list, with a confirmation before removal.
Only collaborators from the workspace itself can be added to the routine. Learn more about how to invite collaborators to the workspace.
Besides participating in the routine, the collaborator also needs to have access to the form of each task in order to respond to it. Learn more about how to configure access to forms.
4. Enable or disable the routine
In the options menu of each routine, in the list on the left, there is a switch to enable or disable the routine:
- Disabled routine: does not generate new activities for the collaborators nor "Not Executed" activity records;
- When re-enabled: tracking restarts from that moment onwards — the windows of the period in which the routine was disabled are not demanded retroactively.
Disabling a routine is a reversible action and keeps the entire collection and monitoring history. Use it when you want to temporarily pause the demands, for example during collective vacation periods or maintenance.
5. Edit or delete the routine
The options menu of each routine, in the list on the left, offers the following actions:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Edit | Changes the routine name and start date (the start date, only while there are no recorded collections — see section 2). |
| Monitoring | Opens Monitoring already filtered by the routine, to follow the executed and not executed activities. |
| Enable/Disable | Pauses or resumes the generation of the routine's activities (see section 4). |
| Delete | Removes the routine from the list and ends the demands. |
Deletion applies to the entire routine, including all its tasks. If the intention is only to temporarily stop the demands, prefer to disable the routine.
6. Time zone and start of the week
The periodicity windows are calculated according to the workspace owner's time zone. For the Weekly and Fortnightly periodicities, the start day of the week configured in the workspace is also taken into account.
This ensures that all routine collaborators — even if they are in different time zones — are held to exactly the same windows.
Learn more about the details of each periodicity (Daily, Weekdays, Weekly, Fortnightly and Monthly).
Next step
A routine without tasks does not demand anything from the collaborators yet. The next step is to add tasks, linking a published form and a periodicity to each of them.
Learn more about how to create tasks and configure the periodicities.