"Dynamic column" in the workplace

[Former Member]

Hi experts.

Do somebody know the possible uses of the "Dynamic column" field in the task registers of the Workflow inbox? You can add some dynamic columns via the "select layout" menu of the workplace but they seem to be empty.

I'm wondering if I can put some custom dynamic information on them via workflow definition (information such like users names or maybe some filter criteria) in order to help the user to show and order the active tasks easily.

Any help on this topic will be interesting for me.

Thank you all!!

Ismael

[pokrakam · Accepted solution]

Hi Ismael,

Dynamic columns are specific to each task, you can define them using tx SWL1.

Once defined, the dynamic column fields should now be available. However they do take a performance hit and obviously the fields are not applicable to all tasks. For this reason it is not a good idea to have a dynamic column as a default layout, but to use them in the in the task-based inbox views:

In the workplace view Inbox -> Workflow -> Grouped by task -> the task you just defined (you must have a workitem of that task already in your inbox). Define a layout and save it as a default, teach your users to navigate to a task if they want to use the columns.

Of course some users can still create their own workflow inbox view with dynamic columns if e.g. the majority of their work is a particular task.

Cheers,

Mike

[Former Member]

Nice one Mike!!

This is exactly what I was looking for. I've made a custom dinamyc column that shows a very useful parameter in order to filter the work items and execute them massively, because some "special users" with lots of responsabilities and, in addition, lots of work items, were "bottlenecking" the processes.

Following your advice I'll try to check the new performance so I get sure not to penalyze the system so much.

Thank you very much!!

Ismael

[pokrakam]

No prob, just a clarification on the performance issue:

I was talking about the inbox becoming slow rather than overall system performance.

If you have a lot items of different types and a couple of dynamic columns then your inbox will suffer. Having the columns only active in task-based views means any slowdown is limited to when a user wants to use that view and you won't have a bad response time every time you go to your inbox just to see if there's anything new (improving a user's perception).

Your 'special users' can still create and save their own default view including dynamic columns in the basic workitem inbox.

Cheers,

Mike