What Are Action Plans?
Most simply, Action Plans are reusable checklists that can be used for onboarding, training, or on projects that need organized tasks. But they're much more than that.
Action Plans allow users to do things "where they are." They create accountability and tracking for your training and projects. No more the days of "did you do that?" "Did you do it the right way?"
Each Action Plan consists of tasks organized in different levels. The top level are called phases. Each phase consists of one or more sections that contain the actual tasks.
Action Plans can be used one-off, or repeatedly used many times. Action Plan Templates let you reuse an Action Plan as many times as needed.
This organization system gives you what you need to create flexible Action Plans that can be used for many different use cases. Let's take a look at the most common ones.
Use Cases
Partner to Client Delivery (Services Businesses)
Use Action Plans to organize and simplify intake, training, and projects for your services business.
Intake: Create an Action Plan that outlines the different phases of your initial intake and client onboarding process. Collect deliverables and information from your client using Supered Editor or external forms.
Training: Create Action Plans for the different client trainings that you offer. You can assign the training to each individual user and track when they've completed it.
Projects: Use Action Plans to track the deliverables and timeline for your projects. You can use a standard Action Plan Template for different projects, to streamline the project lifecycle.
Employee Onboarding
Action Plans take internal onboarding to the next level by letting you craft in-app experiences. Let your users walk around the software and processes that they're learning, rather than just reading or watching videos.
Create an Action Plan Template for each department or role, and then assign it to new employees as they go through onboarding.
You can also use Action Plans to roll out new technology—or changes to your processes—by creating an Action Plan Template and assigning it to each user.
Repeated Activities
Action Plans can be used to streamline any activity that needs to be repeated—especially if it should be done consistently.
Use an Action Plan Template to hold the standard process that you want followed, and then customize it for the specific project being done.
Create an Action Plan
Action Plans live inside of bases, just like cards, guides, and folders. So in order to create one, you'll go into the base:
Go to a Base that you want the Action Plan in
Click the "+" Button at the top of the Base, or on a folder
Select "Create Action Plan" or "Create Action Plan Template"
You're ready to configure your Action Plan
Once your Action Plan (or template) is created, you can configure all of the phases, sections, and tasks.
Setup Action Plan Phases, Sections, and Tasks
Phases
Phases are the top-level organizational structure for Action Plans. Each phase consists of a title and an optional content block.
Each phase displays the completion information of its tasks. So you can quickly tell if a phase is complete, or how much is left.
When an Action Plan is displayed, the first incomplete phase will be shown to the user.
Sections
Sections go inside of phases. Each section consists of a title and an optional content block.
Each section displays the completion information of its tasks.
Tasks
Tasks are what people work on. They consist of the following things:
Task Title: The high-level description of the task
Due Date: When the task is due (displayed in your computer's timezone)
Linked Content: Card, guide, or external link
Task Details: Free-form content block
Assignment: Who is responsible for doing this task? The task will appear in their task list, and their name next to it
You have flexibility on how to structure your tasks. Generally speaking, it's good to make the tasks simple. Use several small tasks instead of one large task that includes many things.
Action Plan Templates
There are two types of Action Plans: instances and templates. If you want to reuse your Action Plan, then you want a template.
An Action Plan Template is mostly identical to an Action Plan, except some of the options are different at the task level.
Due Date: Instead of a date, this field becomes to "number of weekdays this task will be due after assignment". For example, use "0" here to make it due on the first weekday, or "5" to make it due after a week.
Task Assignments: Template tasks are not assignable. We will be looking at different options to support role-based assignment
Templates for Partner to Client Delivery
Use Action Plan Templates if you are doing partner to client delivery. Create the template in your partner account and then assign the action plan to your client (via managed account.)
Packages should not be used for the partner to client delivery use case.
Assign an Action Plan
We've broken this out into a separate article.
Report on Action Plan Completion
Action Plan Template Reporting
Clicking the "Assigned" button on a template will take you to the template reporting page.
This page shows all of the action plan assignments and information about their status
Here are the fields being reported:
Assigned To: The users the Action Plan is assigned to. You can see the role of each user, as well as information about their team (if a managed account)
Team: This column only appears if external users are assigned to the Action Plan
Start Date: When the Action Plan was assigned
Status: Information about the completion of the action plan. The progress bar will be fully filled in when completed, and information about the tasks are provided
Overdue: How many tasks are past their due date
Actions: Modify the assignments or view the action plan
General Action Plan Reporting
Permission Required: "Manage All Action Plans"
Access the "Tasks Reporting" dashboard to view information about all action plans across your entire team.
This view shows you all action plans, and groups them by template. You can filter by users or managed accounts to see the progress of an individual user.
Action Plan Notifications
Users are notified about action plans at specific times:
Action Plan Assigned: When the Action Plan is assigned to a user, they receive a notification with a link to the Action Plan
Individual tasks are not notified, as that would result in an overwhelming number of notifications.
Action Plans in Sidekick
A core goal of Action Plans is to keep users in the platforms that they use and are training on.
Action Plans work in Sidekick to ensure that users stay on-platform the whole time.
Role Permissions
Manage Owned Action Plans: Let users manage owned action plan templates, and create action plans. If this is off, a user will not be able to create action plans.
Manage All Action Plans: Let users manage all action plans and templates, even if they are not an owner.
The admin role comes with "Manage All Action Plans", and regular users come with "Manage Owned".