Stages

Stages are milestones in the case type, and they can indicate a transition of work from one department to another. For example, if your case type is to hire a candidate, you can create Application review, Interview, Decision, and Job offer stages, where each stage includes a set of different actions, and is performed by a different group of people, as shown in the following figure:

Processes

A process consists of a series of tasks, or steps, and visualizes a set of actions within a stage. For example, for Application review stage of hiring a candidate, you can add processes for Collecting personal information and Collecting documents, as shown in the following figure:

By adding multiple processes, you group tasks into logical phases and model the order in which case workers complete tasks, because a case moves to the next process when all of the steps from the previous process are complete.

To speed up case resolution, you can configure parallel processes that involve more case workers simultaneously. For example, in the Check references stage of hiring a candidate, one HR worker conducts a reference check and the other HR worker checks work history of a candidate, as shown in the following figure:

Creating processes saves time because you can reuse a process in different stages and case types. For example, you can reuse the Collecting documents process from the reviewing job applications in other case types.

Steps

Steps are the smallest elements of a case life cycle and represent single tasks or assignments. A step can be a user action or an automation that an application performs. For example, for a Collect personal information process, you can add a Send email step, which is an automation that sends a message to a job applicant, and a Collect information step, which is an action that a user performs, as shown in the following figure: