An Administrator can customize the Compliance Tracker Activities and To-Dos to fit their company’s business processes. Activity Workflows allow Administrators to set:

These workflows can be based on an upcoming deadline, e.g., an Annual Stockholders Meeting, or based on a transaction/change in GEMS.

GEMS comes with a wide variety of pre-built Activity Workflows to automate common tasks across jurisdictions and entities.

Activity Workflows can be created both for entities and contracts.

Activity Workflows are accessed and configured using the dedicated Activity Configuration option under the Admin Hub > GEMS Administration > Activity Configuration.

Within the Activity Configuration option, all existing Activity Workflows are stored. New Activity Workflows can be created by selecting the New Activity Workflow button or by cloning an existing Workflow.

Activity Workflows are configured by following the required steps within the New Activity Workflow wizard.

The first screen present within the Activity Workflow wizard will decide in which order the next screens will be present as seen in Figure 80: Activity Type Workflow.

Each activity will need a description entered in the “Workflow Description” field which will be visible on the Activity Workflows screen – this is only visible to GEMS Administrators.

The “Activity Types" field is used in conjunction with the Activity Workflow Configuration Wizard to dictate what Activity Details fields will be mandatory for the Activity and the minimum list of To-Do Items for the Activity Type entered here. Administrator Users can create Activity Types while creating an Activity Workflow. These parameters will be set during the next steps of the Activity Workflow Wizard.

The example below will look at Workflows for entities, however everything demonstrated below can also be done for contracts.

In the “Activity Types” field there are 2 options:

Either choose View All to see a list of unused Activity Types,

Then simply choose from the list of existing unused activity types;

or click on Add to create a new Activity Type,

then enter a name for the Activity Type in the "Activity Type" field and click Save.

By default, an Activity’s Owners and Assignees are set to the logged-in user who generates the activity. If desired, default Owners and Assignees can be set to internal contact groups, allowing for the auto assigning of activity to whoever is assigned to that internal contact type, this way if a responsible user changes an activity will not be left assigned to any longer active/responsible person.

For more information about Internal Contacts, see the guide on How to Assign Internal Contacts using the Internal Contacts Wizard.

Once these details are configured, click Next to move to the next step.

Within the Activity Creation Option section, the user will be required to decide when to use the Workflow and may choose from one or more of the available options:

If the Activity should be created automatically after saving a transaction within an existing entity it must be specified whether it is after adding a new transaction, editing an existing transaction, or both.

If the Workflow will be used with “Automatically after completing the Add Entity Wizard,” “Automatically after saving transaction within an Existing Entity,” or “Manually from a transaction within an Existing Entity," further parameters will be requested later during the Activity Configuration Wizard; see Auto Create Activity Configuration for more information.

If an Activity is to be created

then it is possible to specify that the Activity Types relate to the Registration & Licenses section of GEMS. This will allow for specific filing-related fields such as "Date Filed," etc., to be captured for the Activity.

In addition, within this section of the Wizard by default, an Activity Workflow is configured to be applied to all jurisdictions and entity types. but an Activity Workflow can be designed to work on a specific jurisdiction or for a specific entity type (or a combination of the two). This is configured by specifying the jurisdictions and/or entity types in the designated fields.

As part of the basic details of the Activity, an Administrator will choose which fields will be required for that Activity.

Whenever a new Activity is created using this Activity Type, these fields will display and those set as mandatory will be required, ensuring consistency in how the Activity is approached.

If required, fields can be specified as mandatory to ensure users include this information when an Activity is created.

In the Activity Date Calculations sections, click the drop-down to choose what date field the Due Date calculation will be based on.

Once the required fields to display have been confirmed, To-Do Items for each activity can be specified.

Whenever a new activity is created using this Activity Type, these To-Do Items will be created for the Activity ensuring consistency in how the Activity is approached. The Administrator may also add which reports/forms need to be generated and if uploading documentation is required.

Dependencies can be used to ensure To-Do items are completed in a specific order. Users can not mark a dependent to-do item done if there are outstanding to-dos on the previous item.

Selecting the checkbox on this screen will allow dependencies to be set.

Once selected, a dependency ordering can then be specified using the dropdown menus on the screen. To-Dos must then be completed in the order displayed beginning with the first to-do with “No Dependency” i.e. No Dependency, 1, 2, etc.

If such a To-Do Item is deleted, GEMS will confirm with the Admin before deletion and update the To-Do Items dependent on the deleted To-Do Item to mark them as Ready where applicable.

If an Auto Create Option or Manually from a Transaction screen is picked, the Administrator will need to choose which transition/screens and fields are used to generate the Activities and To-Dos. An Administrator will choose the entity type of Company/Business, Person, or Non-Affiliate Entity and transaction screen.

Next, click on the box and type in the name of a transaction screen.

Once the transaction screen is chosen, the administrator may choose the field(s) that need to be part of the transaction to generate the Activity. If left empty, any change to this transaction screen will generate Activities and To-Dos.

If choosing a field, click in the box, and type in the name of the field.

The next item is the Activity Due Date. This date carries to the To-Do items too if needed as we will see later. Due dates can be based on any of the following:

By default, the Activity Due Date is based on the system date. The Administrator can then decide how many days before or after the system date the Activity and To-Dos will be due.

If the Administrator chooses the Date from the Transaction Screen, the screen date field must be chosen from the record to base this on.

If the Administrator chooses “Prompt User for Date” once created the activity will let a User enter the due date, by choosing, Prompt User for Date.

Suppose the Administrator uses the Fixed Date option. This option has two choices, a fixed date in the year, e.g., Jan 1st.

Or they may choose a day during the month, the first Monday of the Month.

If the activity should only be created for a subset of entities this can be specified by selecting a pre-configured Saved Search.

Auto Activity Closure is designed to alert the GEMS Edit User when there are open Activities and To-Dos based on the related transaction in GEMS when a record is closed e.g., registration is withdrawn. To enable auto Activity Closure, click on the checkbox next to “Do you wish to prompt the user to close Activities if the associated record is closed.”

Once the box is checked, the Administrator will need to choose which specific field or fields will prompt the closure by either typing in the field or clicking on it and finding it on the list presented.

In addition, the Administrator is required to choose a Saved Search that contains the screen field chosen in the “Select the field(s) updated by the user to close the record “.

Once configured activities with Activity Closure configured will display a blue banner at the top of the Activity to highlight this.

Since GEMS is flexible and allows the freedom to approach certain transactions in multiple ways, e.g., Appointments can be generated from the Business Entity/Company, Non-Affiliate, and Person Snapshots. The Activity Auto Create Configuration allows the Administrator to add another screen profile and repeat the process.

If required both auto and non-auto-generated activities can be set to recur. This is a fantastic way to reduce the overhead required surrounding activity creation – Activities can be set to recur daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or not at all. An example could be the to-do items necessary for an annual report.

Once the user chooses monthly, daily, or yearly, the user will be asked to specify the term—for example, every year or every two years like the example in the figure below.

Activity Workflows can be cloned and then edited to fit the user or organization's needs. Cloning is a huge time saver as it is a quick and easy process to create variations on an existing Workflow.

One such scenario is that the user created an Activity Workflow to auto-create Activities and To-Do’s when a new Entity with a California jurisdiction is created. The user now would like to implement this in the organization's Delaware companies but with slightly different To-Do items. The user can clone that specific Activity Workflow and the required To-Dos – then make any needed amendments and change the search used to assign this to Delaware Companies.

Choose the Activity Workflow to clone by clicking on the menu options next to it and choose clone. Then add the new description and choose the new activity type. As we know, the activity type is needed to create an Activity Workflow. After that, the user may add, remove, or change data as required.

When a Workflow is no longer required it can be inactivated or deleted. Inactivating a Workflow simply turns it off from creating new activities and to-dos and allows it to be reused in the future. Deleting a Workflow removes it from GEMS but keeps all the historical information.

To inactivate an Activity Workflow, click on the menu option next to that Activity Workflow. Then choose Edit from the drop-down list.

In the Workflow Details, choose Inactive from the Status drop-down and click Save & Close.

Activity Workflows can be deleted if they are no longer needed. This will prevent Activities and To-Dos from being created that no longer fit into your processes.

From the Activity Workflow screen, select the menu icon of the Workflow that is being removed and click on Delete.

The Administrator will receive one of the following 3 notifications,