Task list with permanent step completion

June 10, 2019 12:32 PM

I must be searching for the wrong key words. What is it called when you have a list of tasks and permanently mark one complete?

Back in the day I worked at a place where each technician would have a unique stamp, and when they completed a procedure step they would stamp and date each step on a master paper copy. The paper was then kept as a record and would be pulled out during audits, etc. If the stamp needed to be voided the tech had to cross out the stamp, initial, write why, so that there was a permanent record.

I'm trying to find that function in software. There are a ton of task list programs, but you can always check and uncheck steps without any permanence. I want to find one where once the step is marked complete, it cannot be changed unless specifically allowed by someone with a higher access level (like a quality inspector).

What should I be searching for to find that? If you have examples of such software that would be awesome. The key feature is that once a procedure step is worked it is permanent, and once the procedure copy is complete that record is permanent too. If you were to perform the same procedure on ten different parts, you would end up with ten separate completed procedures.

Thanks!

posted by BeeDo to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

In the database I use for work (Salesforce), we can mark tasks as "closed." I have full permissions to close and unclose tasks, but from what I understand, it would be possible for our administrator to remove that permission from my account, so that a task I marked as closed could no longer be edited by me (but could be edited by others with more permissions). The system also automatically keeps a record of who takes what actions on a given record, so if I close a task, it knows that I'm the user who did it, without my having to remember to make a note of it.

Overall, I think a "task list" program is the wrong thing to look for, since those are usually going to be more targeted at individual users - try searching for task management software and see if you come up with better results.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:50 PM on June 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

What you want is an audit log. Can't point to any specific software, but that search term should help.
posted by bfranklin at 1:31 PM on June 10, 2019

This is a permissions function, which are usually defined by user roles in applications. One user can have permission to both check and to edit the checks to a different kind of check, if desired. I don't know that there is a specific term for that type of edit.

An internal system I work with has this as well where an item can be opened and saved multiple times by multiple people, but once it is saved and closed (a different button than just save), it can't be edited on the front end. In fact, I have to unlock it on the back end right now. We could have built it into the front end, but it is a rare occurrence and we want to make it hard on purpose to drive the right behavior. All saves can be timestamped and assigned a hierarchy if that would make overwrites easier to filter.
posted by soelo at 1:32 PM on June 10, 2019

Another term that seems to be producing better search results is "Quality Management System", though I can't vouch for the quality of any of the software that it turns up. "Quality Management Systems" is the title of ISO 9001, which is the standard that governs this sort of process in many companies.
posted by yuwtze at 3:04 PM on June 10, 2019

In Jira, you can have various statuses for resolving user stories and tasks. We may have ported some of these over as custom statuses reproducing what we once had in Redmine. In a Jira instance I use, the statuses we have for "Resolved," in a software-development context, include "Done," "Not Applicable," "Duplicate," "Can't Replicate," "Won't Do," "Works as Expected," and "Cannot Reproduce." On reflection, I'm not entirely sure why we have both "Can't Replicate" and "Cannot Reproduce," since that seems a little bit duplicative. You might look at project-management software such as Redmine, Jira, and Trello for examples.
posted by limeonaire at 3:42 PM on June 10, 2019