Release Notes: 2.42.0.5 Approval Workflows - Implementation on the Documents Module

Release Notes: 2.42.0.5 Approval Workflows - Implementation on the Documents Module Date released to Production: Friday, April 30th, 2021

High-Level Summary:

• Goal of the release: The ability to have a cascading/hierarchical approval workflow on Documents
• Pain point addressed with this release: Ostendio MyVCM customers rely on various departments to approve a document prior to finalization & final approval by the document owner. When they are revising and creating documents, it is important for them to have an easy way to get input from various people, in a specific order.

New Approver types have been introduced:

Optional Approver: The approval workflow would move forward without waiting for the optional approvers on the same cycle approves the document.

• No obligations to approve
• They have an option to approve or reject

Authorized Approver:The approval workflow would move forward when one of the authorized approvers on the same cycle approves the document.

• Authorized means you have authority to approve but you do not have to approve
• Only one of the authorized approvers’ approval let the approval process move on to the next cycle
• They have an option to approve or reject

Mandatory Approver: The approval workflow would move forward only if all of the mandatory approvers on the same cycle approves the document.

• In order to have the approval process move on to the next cycle, the approver has to take action OR the document owner should delete the approver from the workflow (if the mandatory approver has not approved/rejected yet)
• They have an option to approve or reject

• Workflows:

• Initial State: before the approvers added

• The document is in draft
• There are not any approvers on the document yet
• The document owner clicks “Add Approvers” button
• The multi-select pop-up appears and he/she can select one or more users/groups

• Initial State: after the approvers added
• The document is in draft and editable at this stage
• The approvers appear under the Approvers tab
• The approvers status is displayed as  “Not Started”
• “Start Approval” button appears on the screen
• The document owner can make changes to the approvers
• Modify approval cycle
• Drag and drop the approver rows
• Set approval due date
• Set electronic signature requirement
• Select approver type
• Add additional approvers

• Approval State: after the approval workflow is started
  • The document is in draft
    • After the document owner/custodian/admin clicks the “start the approval” button, the document can’t be edited. If the document owner wants to edit the document, he/she has to create a new version

• The approval workflow can be paused

• Paused manually by the document owner while the approval workflow is in progress
• Paused automatically due to approver’s rejection while the approval workflow is in progress

• The approval workflow can be updated when the workflow is paused or if it has not started yet, while the document is in draft and the approver status is not approved/rejected
• The system should recognize that there is a change made on the approvals screen and change the “Resume Approval” button to “Update Approval” when the document owner makes changes while the approval process is still active

• The document owner can make changes to the approvers
• Modify approval cycle
• Drag and drop the approver rows
• Update approval due date
• Update electronic signature requirement
• Update approver type
• Delete approver
• The changes would trigger email notifications to the approvers and to the document owner

• Approval State: Pause Approval
• Paused manually by the document approver while the approval workflow is in progress by clicking “Pause Approval” button
• It means all approvals in the workflow that have not been completed yet (Approval kicked off and Status = Active) or that have not been started yet (Approval kicked off and Status = Pending) will stop

• While the workflow is in pause, if the previously sent email notification brings the approver to the approve/reject UI,“The approval process has been paused or cancelled. There is no need to take any action at this time.” message should be displayed if the approver tries to take action on his/her end.
•  The approvers should stay compliant and there should not be pending action displayed on their dashboard until the approval workflow resumes.

• Approval State: Resume Approval
• There should be “Resume Approval” button available if the workflow is paused manually by the document owner
• The approval workflow should resume from the step it was paused

• Approval State: Paused automatically due to approver’s rejection while the approval workflow is in progress
• Paused info on the top of the UI should appear
• Rejected means: The approval process can’t move to the subsequent cycles (next cycles)
• As soon as there is a rejection in the cycle, then the approval process should be automatically paused. 
• The document owner should be notified on the UI: “The approval workflow is paused automatically because some of the approvers rejected the document.”
•  If there are approvers, they should be notified, too
•  
• The document owner has 2 paths when an approver rejects the document
• Ignoring the rejection:
• The document owner comes to the UI, and clicks vertical 3 dots, select “Ignore Rejection”
• This should make the workflow progress to the next cycle of the approval process
• Accepting the rejection:
• The document owner edits the document considering the rejection points, creates a new version, and re-issue the workflow, which would automatically copy over the same approvers to the new version of the document