There are quite a lot of misunderstandings of what Requestor, Owner or Watcher means within Xeelo platform. Sometimes those misunderstandings are without any harm or can be even meant but sometimes they have heavy impact on configuration and has to be immediately changed.
Let’s clarify those functionalities and then talk a bit about their negative side-factors…
Requestor (flag)
You can find it in Admin → Roles as an checkbox. Please, do not to be confused with role called Requestor!
The first common mistake is that thankfully to requestor flag on particular role, user with this role can create requests. It’s actually not true because creation of requests within object has to be set on object template (User management → Access detail). If user has allowed using template, he can create a new request.
Flag requestor is for something a little bit different than allowance creation of requests. It’s for assignation of unfilled request to user who created the request. In other words, each request carries information who is its requestor (author) and can be assigned (only) to this particular user.
Imagine real business life situation. John is having a trouble with his company cellphone. He is creating a service ticket and suddenly, his colleague Jeff disturbs him and starts talking about his weekend. John is now confused because he was in the middle of something and Jeff interrupted him. Therefore John rather save the service ticket and go with Jeff to have a morning coffee and listen whole story.
If John would saved the request and role service ticket requestor had checked requestor flag, request would be assigned only to him. Otherwise if service ticket requestor had not checked requestor flag, request would be assigned to everybody who would have the role.
Owner
You can find it in Admin → Roles as an checkbox.
Owner is pretty similar like requestor but with one important difference. While requestor is filled automatically to request during its creation, owner has to be added after creation. Therefore each request carries list of its owners. You can easily add owner manually by adding him on particular request (open request → actions → owners) or automatically by object action (add owner from object line/fixed).
In the real life, owners are generally used as a resolvers. If you have a need to process particular request by particular user, you can easily add him into owner list on request and have the request in workflow step containing role with checked owner flag. In this case, Xeelo check the role where request is in, check the list of owners on request and automatically assigned user if he participates both (combination role and owner list).
Watcher
You can’t find it in Admin, just in Xeelo User
Watcher is someone pretty similar like owner but without possibility to change the request. He is something like supervisor of the request and he is able to see the request wherever he needs. Obviously, he has to have org chart category etc. if necessary.
The information about watcher can be found on request. Same as owner, watcher has to be added into request watcher list belonging to request.
Bad side of the moon alias the things everyone should know about
- One of the most import thing is licensing of these roles. Xeelo paid license is based on approval action. If user just creates a request, he is not qualified as paid license. So even if the request is saved in role with requestor flag, he’s still not qualified as paid license.
- If user is assigned to a request as an owner, he is qualified as paid license. Even though role has checked requestor flag!
- You have to always remove all owners/watchers from list if you want to create a new list of owners. The owners remain carried by request
- You should take care on object visibility (admin → object → detail → visibility). It works with owner and watcher as well