Advanced Features Guide

What other actions can I take on a request?

There are some less commonly-used actions on a request that are important to know about but aren't absolutely integral to your daily work flow. These actions are:

• Logging time
• Pausing a Request
• Printing a Request
• Editing request information
• Adding tags
• Assigning tasks

Whether you're charging requesters or creating reports based on time spent on requests, you will need to make sure that all users log the time they spend on every request they work on. All user roles can log time - staff users can only log time for themselves and all other roles can log time for other users as well. Each user's time logged will appear in the request timeline and there will also be a grand total logged in the staff section of all the time spent on the request.

Steps to log time on a request:

1. Sign in to your account
2. Navigate to the request you want to log time on
3. Click the clock icon () in the request icon bar 
4. Enter in the hours and minutes spent on the request
5. (Optional) Enter in a description of what you spent the time doing (Example: uploading and redaction documents).
6. Click SAVE.

Sometimes, you can't move forward on a request until you hear back from the requester. In instances like that, when you're waiting for clarification or something from the requester, you can pause the request. Pausing the request will ONLY pause the notifications from a request - it will NOT pause the due date or halt anything else on the request. As soon as the requester responds to your message, the request will automatically become un-paused.

Steps to pause a request:

1. Sign in to your account
2. Navigate to the request you want to log time on
3. Click the pause icon ()
4. (Optional) Write any comments you'd like to post to the timeline about why you're pausing the request
5. Click Pause Request. NOTE: The request will automatically be resumed when the requester replies to your last message.

If you ever need to provide someone with a PDF of a request, whether it's your boss or a requester that requests a certain request as public record, you can easily generate a PDF of any request by clicking the print icon.

Steps to print a request:

1. Sign in to your account
2. Navigate to the request you want to print
3. Click the print icon ()
4. This will generate a new tab with a downloadable PDF that you can then use to print the request from your computer

You can edit or remove text from the request description if the requester includes private information like contact or identifying information. If you wish to publish the request and don't want this information to be public as well, you can always remove it from the request description. A record of your edits will be tracked in the request timeline.

Steps to edit the request description:

1. Sign in to your account
2. Navigate to the request you want to edit
3. Click the pencil icon to the right of the request description
4. Edit the text by adding or removing whatever you want
5. Click SAVE.
6. Note your edits in the timeline.

Tags can be set up by administrators of the portal, and they are great for organizing the requests in your portal by different categories like requester type, request status, etc. If you are not an admin but have ideas about tags for your portal, please talk to your portal administrator.

Steps for adding a tag to a request:

1. Sign in to your account
2. Navigate to the request you want to tag
3. Click the pencil to the right of the tag's section, below the requester contact information
4. Select one or multiple tags
5. Click SAVE

Assigning tasks in NextRequest is a great way to establish accountability with users in the portal. You can assign individuals tasks and add due dates, which will send out automatic reminders to the assignee when the due date is approaching and past due. Anyone can mark a task as complete, which is important to do (best practice is to do this before closing out the request) because the assignee will still receive notifications about an incomplete task even after a request is closed.

Steps to assigning and completing a task:

1. Sign in to your account
2. Navigate to the request you want assign a task to
3. Click the plus sign in line with the Tasks section
4. Select a user you'd like to assign the task to. NOTE: The user must already be assigned to the request.
5. Type out a description for your task
6. Select a due date for your task
7. Click SAVE
8. Once the task has been completed, check the box next to the task to mark it as complete.