Create Task with Reference forces current user as responsible
Answered
I'm using the Create Task With Reference call, with the Ruby client library.
https://developers.podio.com/doc/tasks/create-task-with-reference-22420
What I'm seeing is that if I don't provide the :responsible attribute, or if it is set to nil, the API creates the task successfully, but assigns the current authenticated user as a the responsible person for the task.
I've tested this with both OAuth and Username/Password auth.
Sample ruby code, not including auth:
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task = {:text=>"test task", :due_time=>nil, :due_date=>nil, :responsible=>nil}
spaceid = 622151
response = Podio::Task.create_with_ref("space", spaceid, task)
puts response.first[:responsible]["name"]
##########
The output is my name: "Matthew Anderson".
In my opinion, this isn't expected or desired behavior from the API. If I don't specify a responsible person, either by omitting the value from my task hash, or by specifying nil, then it should not assign a person to the task.
Thoughts?
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Hi Matthew,
It may not seem logical if you are just looking at the API. However, if you use Podio you'll see that Podio has no concept of a task without a responsible person. You must select a person responsible for each task.
The API could of course throw an error if you don't specify a responsible, but in this case we see it as a convenient shortcut. This way you don't have to look up your own user id to create a task for the currently active user.
Does that make sense?
/Andreas
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Now I understand this shortcut for inputting the current user. Maybe a one-line of documentation on that method? Makes sense.
Mine is a unique use case - tasks created for spaces where users will go in and claim them for themselves.
While I know this is an edge case, I would argue that tasks should be able to be created on a space with no responsible person, for flexibility in this case. However, if you want to cater to the majority of use cases, and force data quality around tasks, I would completely understand.
For now, I'm getting around it by using the API to add the task, then immediately updating assignee to nil :)
As long as that workaround exists, I'm satisfied.
Happy New Year! I'm looking forward to 2013, I'm sure we'll be talking more.
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Hi Johny, could you post your feature request in the feature requests forum? Thanks! https://help.podio.com/forums/21262162-Feature-Requests
/Andreas
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