Tasks
When notifications are sent to everyone, nobody takes responsibility. Without clear assignment and tracking, credential renewals fall through the cracks, work gets duplicated, and application owners receive repeated alerts even when someone is already working on the issue.
The business problem:
- Diffused responsibility means nobody acts on expiring credentials
- Duplicate notifications create alert fatigue for entire teams
- No visibility into who is working on what
- Progress isn't tracked, leading to missed deadlines
- Multiple people may work on the same issue simultaneously
- No way to prioritize or manage credential renewal workload
Benefits
Task-based credential management improves execution and accountability:
✅ Ensure single point of accountability - One person is responsible for each credential renewal
✅ Reduce notification noise - Only the assigned person receives alerts
✅ Track progress - Visibility into what's new, in progress, and completed
✅ Prevent duplicate work - Team members know who is handling each credential
✅ Improve completion rates - Explicit assignment increases follow-through
✅ Enable workload management - See and prioritize all assigned tasks in one place
✅ Provide audit trails - Document who did what and when for compliance
How tasks work
Tasks connect expiration signals with clear ownership and execution. They ensure that expiring or expired credentials are actively handled by a specific person, instead of passively notifying everyone involved.
This section explains:
- When tasks are created
- Who tasks can be assigned to
- How tasks affect notifications
- The task lifecycle and statuses
Purpose of tasks
When a credential is approaching expiration, action is required — typically to replace or remove the credential. Tasks make this action explicit by:
- Assigning responsibility to a single accountable user
- Tracking progress until remediation is complete
- Preventing repeated notifications to uninvolved owners
Once a task exists, EasyLife 365 Identity treats the task assignee as the primary point of contact.
Task availability
Tasks are always available for credentials, regardless of their expiration status. They represent the potential work required to manage a credential, such as replacing or removing it.
Tasks become operationally relevant when they are assigned to a user and by default, an unassigned task is in the New status.
Task assignment
Tasks can be assigned only to users who are allowed to perform the required action.
Eligible assignees include:
- Application owners
- Technical owners who have been granted permission to manage credentials
This guarantees that tasks are always assigned to users who can actually complete them.
Tasks and notifications
Tasks directly influence notification behavior:
- If a task exists and is assigned, notifications are sent only to the task assignee
- Other owners are not notified while the task remains open
- This prevents duplicate alerts and reduces notification noise
If a task is unassigned, notification routing falls back to the standard ownership-based logic described in the Notifications section.
Task lifecycle
Each task progresses through a simple, explicit lifecycle.
New
- Default status for newly created tasks
- Indicates that the issue has been identified but work has not yet started
- Notifications continue to be sent to the assignee
In progress
- Indicates that work is actively underway
- Can be set by the task assignee or application owners
- Helps communicate status and avoid duplicate effort
Closed
- Indicates that the credential has been handled
- Can be set by the task assignee or application owners
- Once closed, notifications for that task stop
Closing a task signals that no further action is required for the associated credential.
Tasks and remediation
Tasks do not perform changes automatically. Instead, they:
- Track responsibility
- Record progress
- Act as the control point for notifications
The actual remediation, such as rotating a secret or replacing a certificate, is performed by users with the appropriate permissions, as defined by the Ownership Model.
Tasks ensure that expiration management scales cleanly by aligning responsibility, permissions, and communication around a single, trackable unit of work.