Recurring Action Items

Recurring action items lets you automatically send action items to evaluators on a repeating schedule. This is especially useful for programs that need refreshed input on an ongoing basis, such as periodic status check-ins, quarterly re-evaluations, or annual reviews of ideas that have sat in the backlog for a long time. Instead of manually tracking when action items need to be sent, you can set up the repeating schedule for your Step, and Brightidea will handle the rest.

Setting up Recurring Action Items

Recurring action items can be enabled in the Step Configuration popup, under the Results and Rules section. 

First, enable Automatically resend action items for submissions in this Step. Then, you can configure:

1. Recurring intervals: You can choose to configure the number of days, weeks, months, quarters, or years
   • For Weeks, you can also choose the day of the week (e.g., every 4 weeks, on Monday).
   • For Months, you can also pick a day of the month (e.g., every 3 months, on the 15th).
   • Quarters send every 3 months
   • Years send every 12 months
2. Starting date and time: This is the date and time of the first scheduled action item. All future action items are sent according to this starting point.
   • Note that only future dates and times can be selected

The information message below the recurring settings will display the next date that action items will be sent for the Step, based on your current settings. 

In the Steps view, any Step configured with Recurring Action Items will also display a small sync icon next to the Step name. Hovering over it will show a tooltip with the recurring settings, as well as when the next send is scheduled to take place.

Recurring Action Items is available for the following Step types:

• Single Scale
• Scorecard
• Development
• Review
• Judging
• Stage
• Gate Approval

Note that this feature is currently not available for Find Owner, Implementation, Stack Rank, or Pairwise Steps.

Sending Recurring Action Items

By default, when a submission is added to a Step with Recurring Action Items enabled, it receives an action item immediately. It will then follow the recurring schedule as long as it remains in that Step.

At each scheduled interval, for every submission currently in the Step:

• Assignees receive a new action item
• Any completed action item from the previous cycle is retained and remains accessible from My Action Items (for action item assignees) and in the Action Items Manager (for administrators)
• Any open action item from the previous cycle will be canceled

This will happen for all submissions in the Step together, on the same schedule. Note that recurring sends are based on the configured Step schedule, and not an individual submission's own time in the Step.

Editing or turning off Recurring Action Items

You can change your recurring date and interval settings, or disable recurring action items, at any time. Editing or disabling recurring settings will not affect existing action items.