Task Life Cycle

Snow Owl has been architected to author terminologies in a distributed and collaborative fashion. Users can work in the same location or can be geographically distributed. In order to coordinate the efforts of multiple authors concurrently editing the same ontology, separate tasks can be assigned to them.

Tasks have a lifecycle that spans from their initial creation through an authoring and reviewing stage to their final approval.

Here is a short summary of the different stages in a typical task lifecycle.

• New task is created – its status is Open. Team members can be assigned.

• Task is activated. Authoring is enabled after clicking the Start Authoring button.

• Work is performed. Task status is In progress.

• Task is sent for review – task status is Resolved as fixed. An author can select reviewers, or reviewers can self-select themselves for tasks that are resolved.

• Task is reviewed by optional number of reviewers. Changes have to be accepted or rejected.

• Reviewer either marks the task as Verified, or reopens the task.

• Task is promoted and can be seen by everyone.

Task life cycle diagram

Work scenario in Snow Owl is flexible, so there's no need to pre-define the scenario at the creation of the task. Once the task is created, the team member(s) can be assigned as author and/or reviewer. The reviewer or reviewers can be assigned later as well.

The different steps of the task life cycle are associated with certain task stages and actions that can be performed. The table below gives an overview.

Step in life cycle of task	Task status	Actions that can be performed
Task is created	OPEN	Assigning task Activating task
Task is assigned	OPEN	Activate task Start Authoring this action automatically activates the task
Task is activated	OPEN	Start Authoring
Authoring started – editing is enabled	IN PROGRESS	Stop Authoring
Work is performed on task	IN PROGRESS	Stop AuthoringSend to ReviewerClose
Sent to Reviewer	RESOLVED	Approve/Request Changes
Review is submitted	RESOLVED	Request another reviewVerify/Return to Author
Another review requested	RESOLVED	Approve/Request Changes
Review is submitted	RESOLVED	Verify/Return to Author
Task is verified	VERIFIED	PromoterReturn to AuthorClose
Task is promoted/closed	CLOSED	Task is automatically inactivated. Modifications are disabled

If the task is returned to the Author, the status changes to IN PROGRESS/OPEN which starts the workflow again.