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What is the FTU Timeout feature?
Timeouts are a way of ensuring that a form's approval process completes in a reasonable amount of time. An FTU approval route can be designed so that individual approval and review routing actions automatically timeout (expire) if not acted upon in a predetermined amount of time (30 days, for example). The timeout clock starts ticking when the routing action becomes the routing slip's current action waiting for approval. The routing slip will remain at the current routing action until it is acted upon by a person or by FTU when the timeout time period is reached.
The form-owning unit determines which approval actions should use the timeout feature and how long FTU will wait for someone to take action before forcing a predetermined outcome for the routing action. The form-owning unit decides the timeout's automatic outcome -- approval, disapproval or review by FTU. If the routing action is automatically disapproved, the approval process stops immediately and the form initiator is notified, otherwise FTU moves to the next routing action on the route.
Timeouts can also be employed by form applications, independently of FTU.
As an example, the Controllers Office eGradFel application uses the FTU Timeout feature.
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Where is FTU Timeout information displayed?
The Dashboard pages that show FTU timeout information are:
- Pending Actions - displays Timeout Date and Timeout Process, if applicable
- Routing Slip Detail - The "Performed By" column shows who performed the action, either an MSUNetID or "FTUDaemon" (indicating a Timeout expiration).
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What processes can be performed when a routing action times out?
Timeout processes emulate actions that people can do — approve, disapprove and review are the only timeout processes allowed.
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What are some limitations of the Timeout feature? Can Timeout force the entire route to finish in a specified time frame?
- Timeouts cannot be used to expire an entire routing slip.
There is no way to ensure that a routing slip completes by a certain date or within a specified number of days. FTU can ony timeout individual routing actions.
- Timeout resulting actions are limited.
A Timeout can only emulate activities performed by people in FTU (i.e. approve, review or disapprove a routing action). A Timeout cannot send emails or run scripts, for example.
- Timeout minimum time period is 1 day.
Expiration period for a routing action must be at least 1 day, thus a routing action cannot expire on the same day that it becomes the current action. In addition, because FTU processes timeouts once each evening, it is possible that a routing action will not actually expire until 1 day past the Timeout date.
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