Who participates in an approval workflow?
An approval workflow involves two important roles to start, and to finish it:
Asset Manager: The Asset Manager holds the responsibility to ensure that the asset gets approved and signed off in time. In that role, and in this context of approvals, the Asset Manager is best positioned to:
determine when to start the approval workflow, or to start consequent steps
add or remove approvers (or cancel pending invitations)
reinvite approvers who rejected an initial iteration
choose when to skip approval steps
Approver: The approver is invited to review an asset, and provide a response within a specific approval step. In his role, an approver can either:
Approve (with, or without a comment)
Reject (with, or without a comment)
How are approval requests triggered?
An invited approver receives an approval request, when:
He was invited to approve an asset - in the context of an approval step
He was REinvited to approve an asset, that he reviewed (rejected/approved) before.
How does an invited approver SEE/OPEN his assigned requests?
When invited, assigned approvers receive an automatic email notification. That email contains a link that will take them directly to the specific asset, with the approval response button readily available.
The assigned approver also sees the pending approval invite on the list of approvals, sitting on his homepage. Clicking on the approval invite there, will also take him to the specific asset, with the approval response button readily available (similar to following the link in the email notification)
How does an invited approver FULFILL an approval request?
Once an approver lands on the asset canvas, the approval details (along with the note) will appear in a dialog box, to ensure he has the appropriate context before he begins to review the asset. The dialog can be closed, and reopened at any time by clicking 'See details'.
The act of reviewing an asset takes place on the asset canvas. The approver has every opportunity to review the Asset and its earlier iterations, the asset info, the attachments, the comments/replies, and the full activity log to understand what happened exactly. He can also leave comments or change requests behind on the asset, as he sees fit.
The canvas carries an approval response functionality at the bottom. When opened, the approver sees a dialog. This dialog:
Shows if the approver has left behind any comments or change requests (that have not been resolved yet)
Suggests a radio-button type response (Approve / Reject), prefilled to 'Reject' if any change requests are left open.
Offer a text box, to leave further motivation or context behind, to support his final conclusion.
A tick box to acknowledge that the approver has indeed reviewed all relevant info of the asset.
A submit button to finalize this response
For about 10 seconds, the approver can correct his mistake, by undoing his response. The dialog then reappears, and his initial response has been removed. The approval request reflects as 'Awaiting response' again.