A question was posted about delegation the other day and it made me realise that there is quite a lot to know about delegation that can be picked up along the way, so thought I would blog about everything I have learnt to date!

Tasks that allow delegation:

Assign flexi task

In the configuration of this action the workflow developer has a few of options for delegation:

Action tab – Allow delegation

The help for this option states:

When this option is selected, the assignee at runtime can delegate the task to another user. Changing the 'Allow delegation' option on the 'Action' screen is the same as changing the 'Allow delegation' option for all assignees on the 'Task Notification' ribbon option.

This means that when the task assignee opens the task to respond, they will see a link to delegate the task to someone else. They can choose this person on a task by task basis. The link will look something like this:

Task Notification tab – Allow delegation

The help for this option states:

When this option is selected, the assignee at runtime can delegate the task to another user.

This means that when the task assignee opens the task to respond, they will see a link to delegate the task to someone else. They can choose this person on a task by task basis.

Escalation tab – Escalation type = Delegate task

The help for this option states:

Delegate task will re-assign all pending tasks to the nominated user after the specified time. Escalation occurs after all reminders have been sent and the specified "Time to escalation" has elapsed.

Assign to-do task

In the configuration of this action the workflow developer has a few of options for delegation:

Action tab – Allow delegation

The help for this option states:

When this option is selected, if the assignee field of the task is changed, Nintex Workflow will record the change as a task delegation and the new assignee will receive the Response Required Notification. If this option is not selected, Nintex Workflow will not track the change to the assignee and Nintex Workflow reports and web parts will not reflect the new assignee.

Task Notification tab – Delegate task when 'Assigned To' changes

The help for this option states:

When this option is selected, if the assignee field of the task is changed, Nintex Workflow will record the change as a task delegation and the new assignee will receive the Response Required Notification. If this option is not selected, Nintex Workflow will not track the change to the assignee and Nintex Workflow reports and web parts will not reflect the new assignee.

Escalation tab = Escalation type = Delegate task

The help for this option states:

Delegate task will re-assign all pending tasks to the nominated user after the specified time. Escalation occurs after all reminders have been sent and the specified "Time to escalation" has elapsed.

Request approval

Action tab – Allow delegation

The help for this option states:

When this option is selected the assigned approver at runtime can delegate the task to another user.

This means that when the task assignee opens the task to respond, they will see a link to delegate the task to someone else. They can choose this person on a task by task basis.

Task Notification tab – Allow delegation

The help for this option states:

When this option is selected the assigned approver at runtime can delegate the task to another user.

Request data

Action tab – Allow delegation

The help for this option states:

When this option is selected, the user whom the task was assigned to will have the option to reassign it to another user.

This means that when the task assignee opens the task to respond, they will see a link to delegate the task to someone else. They can choose this person on a task by task basis.

Escalation tab = Escalation type = Delegate task

The help for this option states:

Delegate task will re-assign all pending tasks to the nominated user after the specified time. Escalation occurs after all reminders have been sent and the specified "Time to escalation" has elapsed.

Request review

Action tab – Allow delegation

The help for this option states:

When this option is selected the assignee at runtime can delegate the task to another user.

This means that when the task assignee opens the task to respond, they will see a link to delegate the task to someone else. They can choose this person on a task by task basis.

Task Notification tab – Allow delegation

The help for this option states:

When this option is selected the assignee at runtime can delegate the task to another user.

Delegate workflow task

This action is designed to work alongside “Request Approval”, “Request Data” and “Request Review” actions by delegating those tasks (using their Action ID) to a specific user. As example where this might be used if after a specific delay an assigned user has not responded, the task can be delegated to another user such as their superior.

This delegation can applied to all pending tasks, or to the first pending task dependent on the requirement.

Delegate page:

Delegate: Use the address book or enter the name of the person you wish to delegate the task to.

Comments: Required field. Use this to add comments to be sent to the Delegate explaining why the task has been delegated to them. This information is added to the notification sent to the delegated user.

The task will be updated to reflect the delegated assigned user. I have noticed that this always changed the status of the task to “In progress”.

Personal Delegation

A user can set up delegation for a period of time to be scoped at different levels. This is accessible from the logged on user name dropdown, selecting Nintex Workflow 2013 and Task Delegation:

Choose "Delegate tasks to a user between specific dates":

From this screen the user can select the dates for which the delegations should occur and who should be delegated the tasks during that period. The scope can be changed to apply only to tasks from the current site, or the entire SharePoint farm.

NOTE: If a task is delegated to a user, the long term delegation is ignored (so isn’t re-delegated).

This ability depends on the Global Setting “Long term delegation”

Site administrators can set up long term delegation for other users if the Global Setting “Site administrators long term delegation” is enabled.

Call web service for Delegation

Using the workflow.asmx web service you can surface the DelegateTask method to delegate a task.

This is outlined in more detail by Dan Stoll here:

https://community.nintex.com/community/tech-blog/blog/2016/04/01/the-gentle-art-of-delegation

NWAdmin Operations for Delegation

Information taken from the PDF located here:

https://community.nintex.com/docs/DOC-1026

DelegateAllTasks

This operation is used to reassign all tasks from one user to another. It can be scoped to a single site, or the entire environment. Note that tasks can only be delegated to individual users, not groups.

Note: This operation uses the Nintex Workflow web service, and requires credentials to connect to the web service.

Usage

NWAdmin.exe -o DelegateAllTasks -currentUser domainusername -newUser domainusername m-siteUrl urlToSharePointSite] r-sendNotification] n-comments] r-username username] t-password password] S- domain domain]

Parameters

Site Owners and Delegation

Even if you have not selected delegation on your actions, site owners should still be able to see the link to delegate a task on behalf of another user. This is especially handy if someone goes out on leave or sick and the workflow cannot continue without delegation, the site owner can just in there and delegate the task on a case-by-case basis.

So as you can see there are a lot of options for delegations in Nintex Workflows, and I am sure I haven't covered all of them! Feel free to comment and let me know if I have missed anything!

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That sums it all about delegation. Nicely compiled.

After a lovely discussion with Steve Bammer‌ at InspireX I wanted to add a comment to this blog about long term delegation. I love long term delegation but didn't realise until this conversation how difficult it is to remove it! Steve had an instance where he needed to remove long term delegation and was pointed to this article written by John Luangco‌ by Nintex Support:

http://blog.provokesolutions.com/nintex-workflow-removing-a-user-from-the-long-term-delegation-list

He has also added this as a suggestion on user voice - hit it up with votes if it is something you think needs to be added:

https://nintex.uservoice.com/forums/229405-1-nintex-workflow-for-sharepoint/suggestions/13113885-allow-administrator-to-edit-long-term-delegation-o

I guess there's one more thing to add about delegation: when you set up short/long-term delegation, only personal tasks will be delegated as opposed to those assigned to groups, because delegation doesn't add users to groups.

Thanks for the insight of the delegation process.
Would be also great to know an alternative way/method to delegate a flexi task when the "delegate this task to another person" is not visible or when forgot to sect the Delegate Task option.

As for now, I have no other work around but to cancle the request and resubmit!

Thanks Cassy Freeman‌!

This has been useful, especially the last bit where you've mentioned Site Owners always see the delegation link even when switched off. I thought something was broken as I could still see the link.

Thank you for putting this together. Very useful.

I have a business case where I need to exclude personal/long term delegation for a specific workflow.

The way I see it is that there is no easy way to achieve this.

I believe I would have to isolate this workflow in a dedicated site, then have approvers choose the delegation scope by teamsite only. With multiple sites containing workflows that would not be manageable for them as they would have to setup long term delegation on every site that contains workflows except one. Won't happen.

Maybe there is another way ?

Thanks

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