Approval process workflow

To begin the approval process, you create an approval, add approvers, and add approval items. Then, you submit the approval and the review process begins. Unica Plan sends the approval process to approvers based on their sequence and whether the reviewers are required or optional. The approval process can go through several iterations as all the approvers complete their review.

About this task

Several things to note about approval processes.

  • The approval owner can cancel the approval process at any time in the process.
  • Approvers provide a separate opinion about each item in the approval: approve, approve with changes, or deny. They then post the entire response.

  • Unica Plan organizes approvals in views. When you click Operations > Approvals, by default the My Active Approvals view displays. This list shows only approvals that are active and you are a member of (as either an owner or approver).

    Note: You can also view the approvals that are waiting for your response to through the My Active Approvals portlet on your dashboard.
  • Approvals display on your approval list when it is your turn to respond. When you are next in the approval sequence, Unica Plan notifies you. To see all approvals, navigate to the All approvals view.
  • If an approval is linked to a task in the workflow, then the system considers the Schedule Through setting for the task. Unica Plan also considers the system-wide setting for non-work days and individual users' timezones when it schedules approvals.

Procedure

  1. You create the approval process, either as a stand-alone approval or as an approval task in a workflow.
  2. Add approvers.
    • You can add as many approvers as you need.
    • You specify whether each approver acts in parallel with other approvers or before or after any other approver by specifying a sequence number.
    • You specify approvers as required or optional.
    • You can create individual instructions for each approver.
    • If you are adding an approval workflow task, you can select project roles for the approvers, for example legal approver and subject approver.
  3. Submit the approval.
  4. The system immediately notifies all the approvers with the sequence number of "1."

    No other required approvers can respond to the approval yet; they must wait their turn, which is based on the sequence order specified. However, optional approvers can respond at any time; optional approvers are not tied to the established approver order.

  5. Approvers respond to the approval. Depending on how Unica Plan is configured, the approver might also be able to place comments in approval items.
  6. Approvers assess each item that is attached to the approval and then post their completed response.
  7. The system notifies the next approver, which is based on the sequence numbers that are set in the approval.