Approval Process — Key Exercises

Starting the Approval Process

1. Open the Document Revision window from the Navigator.
2. Perform a query (F3) to find the Assembly Instruction that you created in an earlier exercise (e.g., use the search criteria Document Class=XXINSTR, where XX are your initials).
3. When the document revision is populated in the window, click the Approval tab.
4. Right-click in the header, point to Status, and then click Start Approval.
5. Click Yes.

Result: The Approval Process has started. If using an event server, the approving person(s) and/groups in step one will receive an e-mail that the Assembly Instruction is available for their approval.

Note: The document status has changed from Preliminary to Approval In Progress.

Finding Document to Approve

If you do not use an event server, the approving person must search for the documents that he/she should approve. There is a special form where you can find all objects that you are supposed to approve. Now you are going to switch roles, and pretend to be the document approver instead of the person who created the document.

1. Open the Approvals window from the Navigator.
2. Select the Document Revision object type in the Select Object drop-down list at the top of the form.

Note: The form is populated with all document revisions that should be approved. 

3. To find the revisions that should be approved by YOU, perform a query (F3) and enter your username in the Approver field.

Result: The document revisions that should be approved by you are displayed in the window.

Viewing the Document

To be able to approve the document revision, you should view the document.

1. Select the document revision in the Approvals window.
2. Right-click and click View Document.
3. Select Original Document and click OK.

Result: The document should now be opened in its original application (MS Word).

4. After reviewing the document revision, close the document.

Rejecting the Step

In this case, you found some minor errors in the document that you want the document creator to change. Therefore, you will not approve this step.

1. Select the document in the Approvals window.
2. Right-click and then click Reject Step.
3. Enter a comment in the Note field, describing why this step was rejected (e.g., spelling errors).
4. Save your comments.

Result: When a step is rejected, the approval process is stopped. 

Canceling the Approval Process

The document creator must cancel the approval process. Since you rejected the step, correct the errors and then start the approval all over again.

1. Open the Document Revision window, populated with the Assembly Instruction.
2. Review the approval process under the Approval tab, and see that the first step has been rejected. Also take a look at the comments in the Note field.

Note: You can see the name of the approver in the Approver/Approver Name fields. 

3. Right-click in the header, point to Status and then click Cancel Approval.
4. Click Yes.

Note: The document status was changed from Approval In Progress to Preliminary. Also note that the Rejected status of the first step in the list was removed, but the notes are still there.

Restarting the Approval Process

When the errors have been corrected, the approval process can start again. No matter at what step the document was rejected, the approval process must be restarted.

1. Right click in the header of the Document Revision window, point to Status and then click Start Approval.
2. Click Yes button.

Approving the Step

Now you are the approver again. This time you think that the document revision looks correct and you approve it.

1. Open the Approvals window from the Navigator.
2. Select the Document Revision object type in the Select Object drop-down list at the top of the form.
3. Find the document by making a query (F3), using your username as the search criteria in the Approver field.
4. Select the Assembly Instruction, and right-click and click Approve Step.

Result: The approval step is approved. When sending a document revision on approval to a group, only one person in the group needs to approve the step. In this case, it was you.