Email notifications via Workflow - need a 1st to respond function

 We have started trying to use email notifications from workflow and have had some success. However we are struggling with the famous sending an email notification to a responsibility. We know we need to check on the Expand Roles in the Workflow Builder but it requires a function to be performed. We found a sample of a procedure to count votes using wf_notification.votecount but we are not doing a vote count just a simple first to click on OK advances the workflow to the next step. Is there a seeded wf_notification procedure or a wf_item_activity_status procedure that can be called