Approve

Overview

This is a manual action that stops the file processing until a person designated as the approver approves the file so it can continue processing.

The approval process goes like this:

• User puts a file into the workflow
• Approver gets a notification saying there are files to approve
• Approver can approve the file
  • File continues to the next step in the workflow
• Approver can reject the file
  • In that case, the user that put files in the workflow will get the notification that the file is rejected and then will be able to act by retrying the file (probably with an explanation added) or deleting it completely

Action Flow

• "There are files to approve" notification is sent to ALL the approvers
  • It's one notification for one Approve action. So, if there are two jobs with 5 files to approve, it will say: "you have 10 files to approve"
  • It leads to the workflow's To-do List with the Approve action filter selected
  • When the file is approved, the notification disappears for others
• When a file is in Waiting for approval status, it will have:
  • Two additional actions for the approver - Approve and Reject. Those actions will be shown on File View and in the To-do List when files are selected
  • Just the basic set of actions for the person who added them (Comment, Download, Delete)
• As soon as a file is approved, the file continues with the workflow (even if there are other files in the job still waiting for approval)
• If a file is rejected, it will have one additional action - Retry. Retry will resend the file to the approval, which will produce a new notification for the approver.
• If a person is set to be an approver of some action in a workflow, they will be able to access all the files in the workflow. This even overrides rules made in Who can use the workflow section of workflow configuration.
  • If a user is an approver and restricted to use the workflow (all deselected in Who can use the workflow), they will be able to see the notification even if they don't see the workflow tile. The notification will lead them to the Workflow Detailed View > To-do List and see the files they need to approve.
• If a person who is the last approver in some Approve action gets deleted, the workflow becomes invalid because no one can unblock files stuck in the Approve action. Therefore, we send a "There is no one to approve" notification to:
  • All the people who can edit the workflow, if any
  • If there are no users with Can Edit rights, the notification is sent to all administrators, as a fallback
  • The notification leads to the Edit Workflow Screen. Problematic action is marked with an exclamation mark icon.
• If one of the approvers that must approve is deleted, we show the Approver who must approve has been deleted notification
  • The global notification leads to the Edit Workflow Screen 
  • The approve action is marked with the configuration error icon 
  • In the Approve action configuration, the deleted user is marked red 
  • The action configuration may be saved only after the invalid user is removed 
  • Files stuck in this state will have a Missing Approver status in file lists
     

Action Configuration
 

• When configuring approvers, you can pick a specific person or choose them dynamically from the form data (user type)
• When there are multiple approvers, All Approvers Must Approve option appears
  • If it's deselected, anyone can approve the file. When the file is approved by anyone from the list, it is considered approved and it continues with the workflow
  • If it's selected, all the approvers from the list must approve the file for it to be considered approved. If anyone rejects it, the file will be considered rejected. Only when all the approvers approve the file, it will continue with the workflow.
    • Usage of the multiple approvers in the metadata of the successive actions:
      • For text actions, such as Stamp or Watermark text, we join the multiple approvers into a sentence (e.g., Amy Bond, Brian Cox and Clarie Davies), similarly as we do for email text. Please note that the Approval Date is still the last of the multiple approval dates. 
      • For manual actions, such as Simple Sign or Custom Task, we raise the notification to all the approvers (all of them can sign/perform the task). The file will continue if any of them performs a manual action. 
• Using Approve data in other actions
  • Metadata inputs have the Approval Details submenu as one of the options.
  • Only the actions after the Approve action can use its data.
  • In case of multiple Approve actions in the workflow, only the details of the last Approve action are used. 
  • If you want more info on the actions where approval details can be used in metadata inputs, please check the Metadata Concept chapter (under Approval Details bullet).