Activ’s Home screen is your gateway to the different parts of your system, and is the first page that your users will be presented with when they login to Activ (unless they are accessing the system from e.g. a bookmark or a notification link). The page will be divided into two key sections:
- The Menu, which is displayed down the left side of the page; and
- The Action Tracker, which takes up the rest of the page.
Whilst the menu is purely a navigational tool, the Action Tracker, when used properly, can be a powerful organisational tool for you and your company. It offers this by providing you with a single point of reference for all of the open actions that have been assigned to you across all of the modules within your system, and also by allowing System Administrators to obtain an overview of all open actions across all users, or to check what actions a specific user has. This information can help you and your company keep on top of the activities that are needed to support your ISO Compliance, Legal Compliance, and/or day-to-day business.
For ease of use, the Action Tracker is split into two parts – these are explained in more detail below.
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The Action Tracker’s Statistics
The Action Tracker’s statistics section is the table that appears in the top half of the screen, and provides you with a quick overview of the number of open actions that are currently assigned to you or to the user you have selected within the User Picker (see below). It can be used both as a filtering mechanism (see below), and as a means of determining the size of your overall workload and which modules most need your attention. To help you prioritise your work, the information it contains is broken down into three status columns:
- Overdue – the number of open actions that are overdue;
- This Week – the number of open actions that are due this week; and
- Open – the total number of open actions that you (or the selected user) currently have.
These counts are provided both as overall figures (displayed within the ‘All Actions’ row), and as per-module figures.
Note that the All Actions row will appear for all users, but that the modules displayed within the rest of the table will vary between users and over time. This is because the Action Tracker will not include any modules that you (or the selected user) do not currently have open actions within.
The key features of the statistics table are as follows:
User Picker – this is the dropdown menu that appears in the top left corner of the table. For most users, it will be locked for editing and will appear greyed-out, but if you have ‘Admin’ permissions to the System Administration: Administrator area you will be able to use this menu to switch from your Action Tracker to a company-wide Action Tracker (the ‘All’ option) or to the Action Tracker of any other user within your system. This allows you to track your employees’ workloads, and obtain a quick overview of the actions that are open throughout your system.
The ‘All Actions’ Row – provides the total count of actions that are currently open within each column, allowing you to see at a glance how many actions have been assigned to you (or the selected user), and how many of those actions are overdue or due this week.
Responsive Buttons – each number included within your Action Tracker behaves as a button as well as a count of the relevant actions. As a result of this, mousing over any of these numbers will result in it expanding and obtaining a highlight that is complimentary to the column you are currently viewing (i.e. a darker shade of that column’s default colour). In addition to this, a ‘permanent’ highlight will remain on the number that corresponds to the filter that is currently active within your To Do list.
Filterable To Do List – clicking on any number within the statistics table will apply a filter to the Action Tracker’s To-Do list, allowing you to view the actions that are associated with that specific counter. For example, if you wished to view all Improvement Logs that are overdue, you would click on the corresponding number within the Improvement Log row’s red column. By default, your To Do list will be filtered by all open actions.
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The Action Tracker’s To-Do List
The Action Tracker’s To Do List section is the table that appears in the bottom half of the screen, and lists all of the open actions within your system that have been assigned to you (or the selected user). Each action will be displayed on its own row within the table, alongside its due date and the module (‘Area’) that it belongs to. By default the To Do list will display all actions across all modules, but it can also be filtered by module and/or status (i.e. overdue, due this week, all open) by clicking on the corresponding numbers within the statistics section (see above).
The key features of the To Do table are as follows:
Colour-coded entries – records will automatically be listed in red text if they are overdue, and black text if they are not.
Shortcuts to underlying Records – clicking on any Due Date will shortcut you directly to the record (e.g. Task, Audit, Improvement Log, etc) that is associated with the action. Similarly, if the action is not a file review then clicking on its Summary will also shortcut you to the associated item’s record. However, if the action is a file review then clicking on the summary will download a copy of the file to your computer.
Summary – this will typically be the name of the record that is associated with this action. For example, if the action is a file review the Summary will display the file’s name, if it is a Supplier Assessment it will display the company’s name and the date of the assessment, and if it is an Improvement Log it will display the Improvement Log’s summary title.
Due Date – the due date or target review date that has been recorded against the associated record. By default these will be displayed chronologically with any overdue actions at the top of the list. However, you can also reverse the ordering by clicking on the column heading.
Area – the module (or area of a module) that the action belongs to.
Note that the To Do list will only be visible if you currently have at least one open action assigned to you. If you have no actions assigned to you (e.g. because you are a new user, a fully read-only user, or have completed all of your actions), the To Do list will be replaced by a green banner as in the example below. Similarly, this banner will automatically be replaced by the To Do list table once an action has been assigned to you.
