Documentation
Re-Assigning a Task When You're Out of Office
Set up an OOO delegate, manually delegate a specific task, or recall a delegated task.
Re-Assigning a Task When You're Out of Office
The automatic way: OOO delegate
Best for planned absences (leave, training, travel).
- Profile → Settings → Out of Office
- Toggle “Out of Office” on
- Choose a delegate (a colleague who will receive your workflow tasks)
- Optionally set start and end dates
- Save
While you're OOO:
- New tasks routed to you go to your delegate
- Your delegate sees them in their queue alongside their own
- The audit log captures “originally assigned to [you], delegated to [them] due to OOO”
- Tasks already assigned to you before OOO started don't move automatically — you can manually delegate them (next section)
When you return:
- Toggle OOO off
- Tasks that arrive after this point come to you again
- Tasks the delegate has not yet acted on stay with them (delegate completes the loop)
The manual way: delegate a specific task
For ad-hoc situations — you're in a meeting all day and need this approved by EOD.
- Open the task in My Approvals
- Click Delegate
- Choose the colleague
- Optionally add a note (“approving on my behalf — concur if amount under KES 50K”)
- Confirm
The task moves to them. You stay informed via the workflow's comment thread.
Recalling a delegation
If you delegated something and want it back:
- Open the workflow instance from your Submitted view
- Find the step that's currently delegated
- Click Recall
- Confirm
The task returns to you. Audit log captures the recall.
What delegates cannot do
A delegate inherits the approval authority for the workflow step. They do not inherit:
- Document permissions you have (the delegate must have their own access to the document)
- Other workflow steps you'd normally handle (each delegation is per-task)
- Your role assignments
If a delegation fails because the delegate doesn't have permission, you'll be notified.
Choosing a delegate wisely
Best practices:
- Pick someone with similar authority (don't delegate CFO approvals to a junior)
- Pick someone with overlapping context (they know what they're approving)
- Don't delegate the same person for too long — they'll get overwhelmed
- Tell them in advance (delegates can decline; awkward at the moment)