Writing a simple Follow-up
This page explains how to create a follow-up, how to write reminders, and how to close the follow-up.
We will use a simple example: the photocopier is broken, and you have been asked to repair it by Thursday. You choose to create a follow-up to not forget.
When you login to TeemWork, the list of follow-ups is automatically displayed. It can also be found by clicking on 'Follow-ups' in the 'Administration' menu:
To create a new follow-up, click on the 'Add a Follow Up Topic' button:
You must then enter a 'Topic' (The photocopier is broken), a due date (Thursday), and a short description.
When you create a follow-up, the default 'due date' is today, which means that the follow-up is urgent.
In the top-left corner of the window, the name in the 'referred to' field should be your own. If you want to show the follow-up to someone else in your team, you could select his name from the list.
When you have entered the requisite information, click on the 'Refer' button to save the follow-up.
That's it! Your follow-up has been created. You can see it on the follow-up list by clicking on the 'Topics' button.
Now, let's say that you have taken a look at the photocopier, and it turns out that there is a defective component that must be replaced. You call your local computer store, and they tell you that they don't have the component in stock, and that you should come back on Wednesday.
You could take note of this by writing a new follow-up, but it is easier and more logical to write a simple reminder on the existing follow-up.
You can't modify the initial message of a follow-up once it has been created. You can, however, add other messages, called reminders. A reminder doesn't necessarily have to remind you of anything; it can be any pertinent information.
To write a reminder for a follow-up, open the follow-up list, and click on the follow-up in question (in our example, 'Broken photocopier':
The most urgent follow-ups are at the top of the list. When the date is written in red, it means that the follow-up's date is past.
When you click on a follow-up, TeemWork displays every reminder ever written for that follow-up. If you aren't familiar with the problem because someone referred the follow-up to you, you should take time to read the other reminders.
In our example, there is only one message on the follow-up, 'Problem with the paper feed':
Notice that we have changed the due date on this follow-up, because we now know that we have to pick up the component at the store on Wednesday, not Thursday.
We have also entered the word 'OK' in the code field. We could have left it blank, or entered any other word. In this case, we wrote 'OK' because nothing can be done about the problem before Wednesday, and we want to remember that.
As with the creation of a follow-up, you must click on the 'Refer' button to save the reminder.
On Wednesday, the follow-up will be due, and its date will turn red on the follow-up list. You can then go to the store to get the photocopier component.
Once the task described in the follow-up has been done, it should 'closed'. Closed follow-ups aren't displayed in the list, unless the 'include closed follow-ups' checkbox is checked.
Closing a follow-up is easy: you must write a final reminder, which concludes the follow-up, remove the check from the 'due date' checkbox, and click on the 'Refer' button.
Related Topics
Once you are familiar with follow-ups, you can learn how to: