Processes (Cases)

A process collects everything about one piece of work: its workflow, tasks, holds, documents, messages, costs, and the people and organizations involved. Many teams call a process a case; QBO’s screens and menus say Process.

Open a process

1. Go to the record the work is about, such as a contact, an organization, or an asset.
2. Choose New Process and pick a Template. The template decides what kind of process you are opening, for example “Claim Review” or “Vendor Onboarding”.
3. Fill in the details your form asks for and save.

When the process is saved, QBO sets it up for you:

• The process is named after its template unless you give it a name.
• If the template defines a workflow, it starts as of the process’s open date, and its first tasks appear on the process and in your team’s worklists.
• If the template defines a cost ledger, it’s created so fees and expenses can be recorded against the process.
• If only one organization is eligible to work the process, it’s assigned automatically.

Work a process

The process’s summary page shows its details and related work in panels:

• Activity includes the Tasks tab (work assigned to people by the workflow or added by hand) and the Holds tab (pauses placed on the workflow, with their reasons).
• Documents holds files attached to the process. See Document Management.
• Other panels, such as messages, contacts, and the cost ledger, appear according to your installation and your permissions.

Tasks you need to complete usually reach you through a worklist rather than by browsing processes. See Worklists.

Who is on a process

Field	Meaning
Assigned person and Assigned organization	Who is responsible for the work.
Vendor and Vendor person	The outside organization doing the work, and its contact.
Client and Client person	The organization the work is for, and its contact.

Assigning a vendor or client also controls what their users can see: they get access to this process, not to everything else on the parent record. Your administrator decides how this applies in your installation.

Close a process

Close a process by setting:

• Closed Date: when the work ended.
• Closed Reason: why it ended, chosen from the list your administrator set up.
• Status: the process’s final status.

Depending on the process template, closing a process may also:

• require a final status (you’ll see an error if the status you chose isn’t final),
• cancel the process’s workflow (or all of its open workflows), so no more tasks are created,
• cancel open worklist items for the process’s tasks, so nobody keeps working on a closed process.

Some templates close the process automatically as soon as it reaches a final status.

Tip

You can close several processes at once from search results: select them and use the bulk close option to set the closed date, reason, and status together.

Note

Menu labels can vary by installation; your administrator can rename or hide options.