A queue (sometimes called a workbasket) is a queue of open assignments in the application. You can use multiple queues to separate types of work, or group work by function or location. Within a queue, assignments are ordered based on decreasing urgency.

A work group, which can sometimes be called a team in the portal, determines which queues a user can access. A work group identifies a user who is a supervisor and a set of workers that report to that supervisor. You can use work groups to create reporting structures and support task routing in your application.

Work groups and queues are usually set up by the System Architects when they are implementing functionality specified in user stories.

Configuring your work groups

1. The work groups you will create and configure will be defined by the project Business Architect.
2. View all existing work groups in your system: in Dev Studio by navigating to Configure > Org & Security > Tools > Work Groups.
3. To create a new work group, navigate to Create > Organization > Work Group.
   1. Use short description to give the work group a meaningful purpose. This is the display name of the work group.
4. Give the work group a short but descriptive name in Work Group Name. This is the ID of the work group and usually you don’t include spaces.
5. Create the reporting structure by adding the work group’s manager.
6. Add default work queue that defines where users in the work group get their work assignments from by default.
7. Add any other managers to the Authorized managers section.
8. An alternative way to create Work Groups is to use the My Teams link in Case Manager. This allows you to directly add team members without having to add the Work Group to each individual Operator ID record.

Configuring your queues

1. The work queues you will create and configure will be defined by the project Business Architect.
2. View all existing queues in your system: in Dev Studio by navigating to Configure > Org & Security > Tools > Work Queues.
3. Compare that list with the list of queues that are currently in use in your application, which can be seen by navigating to Configure > Case Management > Work Management > Work queues.
4. If you want to add an existing work queue to your application, you do so by referencing it directly where you need to use it, which could be one of:
   1. Add it to an Operator in the Operator’s Work tab.
   2. Add it as the default queue on a Work Group.
   3. Reference it in a Flow when assigning work.
5. To create a new queue, navigate to Create > Organization > Work queue.
   1. Use short description to give the queue a meaningful purpose. This is the display name of the queue.
   2. Give the queue a short but descriptive name in Work queue. This is the ID of the queue and usually you don’t include spaces.
6. Specify which Organization, Division, and Unit the work queue belongs in. This is used by Pega when assigning work and ensures that work is placed into the correct queue.
7. If you are going to use teams (work groups), enter the name of the Team that the queue belongs to, in the Work group field.
8. You can restrict access to the work queue so that only users with a certain role can retrieve work out of the queue. To do this, you enter any number of roles into the Roles section of the work queue form. Only users with at least one of the named roles will be able to retrieve work from the queue.
9. You can assign a calendar to a queue and it is always good practice to at least make sure it is a calendar that is in your own timezone. If you want to restrict the days that work can be added to the queue, then you can add a calendar with specific work days and holidays defined. You do this on the Preferences tab. Note that the Time Zone field on the Preferences tab is not used.
10. You can configure a queue to send an email notification when work gets added to it. To do this, add any number of recipients to the Contacts section of the form. Notifications can take two forms – an email can be sent to justthe first listed contact, or to all contacts. This behaviour is configured in your flows later in project development.
11. Ensure that you have the default set of work queues needed by Pega shown in the list below, where yourorg is the name of your Organization record:
    1. requests@yourorg
    2. inprogress@yourorg
    3. deferred@yourorg
    4. Administrator@yourorg
    5. support@yourorg
    6. default@yourorg
12. You can read more about these default work queues in Initial Work queues.

Outcome

At the completion of the Minimum Loveable Product (MLP) project, your users will be members of one or more teams and will have access to select work assignments from one or more queues.

There will not be more queues than are necessary for the MLP to fulfil its function, but every work group and queue should have a name and a purpose that is meaningful to anyone in the organisation.

Every work group and queue that you create will use language and terms that are meaningful and obvious to the people who work in your organization.

Frequently asked questions about your queues and work groups

How should I define my queues and teams to start with?

Don’t try to model the all the teams that operate in your whole organization. Start with the bare minimum needed to allow your minimum loveable product to fulfil its function. But don’t create meaningless default ones either – make the ones you do create as real-world as you can so that you create a solid foundation on which to further enhance your application.