Table of contents
What is a card?
Action (event) cards are visible, actionable representations of transactions (timesheets, leave, adjustments) and business objects (masterfiles).
Appearing primarily in the Affinity Self Service mobile app and on the Affinity Payroll Dashboard, they provide information to managers and employees that helps them to respond to those transactions and business objects.
Our events system needs to ensure that data provided is:
Instant. Because we don't know the time constraints of people and systems consuming the data, we assume that it is needed now.
Complete. Third-party systems cannot query additional data, so we need to ensure that we provide all of the required data.
Meaningful. Leveraging Affinity Common Language, we need to ensure that data shared is meaningful to people and systems.
Self-explanatory. Cards need to explain why a masterfile change was flagged, or a timesheet approved — or whatever else is of interest to the recipient.
Why cards are important
Cards provide a way for users (especially managers and approvers) to receive timely information in a form that is easy to digest and react to. For example, most managers only need to know:
Things that need attention now.
Things that will need attention soon.
Things that needed attention yesterday.
This information takes the form of actionable information snippets which provide a summary of the task or event requiring attention, and what can be done about it.
Each card relates to a specific business object or transaction in the system. Additional information can be layered on to produce cards that are meaningful and insightful — and completely understandable by humans.