Approvers

This portion of the New or Edit Approval Process form contains a list of approvers and items to approve, as well as other options to configure the approval process.

List of approvers

This section of the page displays a list of approvers. By default, this field is empty. Add approvers by using the Add Approvers link.

Note the following:

  • Individual users or teams can be set as approvers.
  • By default, approvers are added as Required.
Table 1. Information in the list of approvers
Field Description
Approver role A role or roles associated with the approval task. These can be loaded automatically from the project template used to create the project, or the project owner can set them up manually. This field is not available in stand-alone approvals.
Approver Name Displays the user name of the approver. You can use the drop-down menu to update the approver.
Default Duration Displays a duration selection control. Specify the actual duration for each approver or approval step.
Sequence Displays the order in which the approvers need to respond. Enter integer values in the field for each approver, as follows.
  • Assigning the same number to more than one approver means that these approvers act in parallel, and can respond to the approval simultaneously.
  • When a user revisits this page, approvers are listed by their sequence number, rather than the order they were added to the approval.
  • Use the sequence numbers to specify the order in which approvers act, as well as whether some approvers act in parallel or in sequence.
Required Check the box next to each approver who must approve. If this box is not checked, the approver is optional. Note the following behavior for required approvers.
  • If an approver is required, the next approver in sequence is not notified (and cannot respond) until the current approver responds.
  • If an approver is required, and that approver denies the approval, then the next sequential approver is not notified. Instead, the approval is placed on hold and the owners are notified.
  • If multiple approvers have the same sequence number (and therefore can act simultaneously), and one of the required approvers rejects the approval, a notification is sent to the approval owner. However, the approval process continues until all the required approvers of the simultaneous process respond.
  • At least one approver must be set to Required. Although a user can save the approval with all optional approvers, such an approval process cannot be started. The system generates a warning message if someone tries to start an approval that does not contain a required approver.
Instructions for approvers Add any instructions or comments for the approver to see when they open the approval.
Note: This field is not available in a stand-alone approval.
Add approvers Clicking this link opens the Select Approvers dialog box, where you can edit the list of approvers.

Other fields

The bottom portion of the page, above the list of approval items, contains the remainder of the approval settings.

Table 2. Other approval fields
Field Description
Subject Add a short subject for the approval. This text should be fairly descriptive, as it shows up in the Approval List for help in differentiating between all the approvals on the list.
Target Due Date Enter a target date by which you want the overall approval process completed. Use the calendar icon in the drop-down list to choose a date from the calendar.

Note the following.

  • This field is required to start the approval process.
  • Depending on project reminder settings, a reminder is sent to approvers on the date you enter here.
  • If the approval is sequential, the Target Due date should be equal to today's date plus the sum of the values in the Default Duration field for each approver.

  • If the approval is simultaneous, the Target Due Date should be equal to today's date plus the maximum of the values in the Default Duration field for each approver.

    For example, suppose that the following approvers are added to the approval.

    
     Name      Seq.   Dur.
       A        1     1 day
       B        2     2 days
       C        3     1 day

    If the approval is started on 14 July 2008, the Target due date would be 18 July. If you set the Target due date earlier than the correct calculation dictates, the system generates an error, and the approval cannot be saved until the durations and dates are reset to appropriate values.

  • You cannot start an approval process if its Target due date is past. You must first change the target date to some future date.
Description Displays the text details for the approval.
Re-approval Rules Select the rule to use for this approval. You can restart the approval, continue from current review step, or select the approvers who need to review again.
Disposition on all approval items required Check box that determines whether all approval items need to be reviewed. If this box is checked, each approver must approve or deny all approval items.
Enable comment attachments Check this box to allow approvers to add comments attachments while responding to the approval. By default, this option is selected.
Enable approval auto completion Check this box to have the system automatically mark the approval Completed after the last required approver approves. By default, this option is not selected.