Setting Up the Approval Process 

Purpose

The approval process allows you to make sure that documents are checked by one or more people before being published. You determine which approval steps are necessary and the people, groups, or roles who are responsible for approving the steps.

 

Prerequisites

The status management service is activated for the repository. This setting is made in system administration. For more information, see Status Management Service.

 

You need the service permission Approver Administration (or Full Control) to carry out the following actions.

●     Set up the approval process for a folder

You can activate and deactivate the approval process, determine approval steps, and assign users to the steps.

●     Display all documents irrespective of their release status

You can also see documents that have not yet been released.

●     Skip the approval process

You can release documents directly without them being approved.

 

Make sure that only authorized people are given these service permissions. For more information, see Service Permissions.

It is absolutely necessary to maintain service permissions in the repository in which the documents to be published are stored if you want the system to function properly. You should not give all users the Full Control service permission.

Process Flow

You determine the approval process in the Details dialog boy for a folder (by default this is under Settings ® Approval). This approval process is valid for all documents that are created in this folder.

You carry out the following steps:

...

       1.      You activate the approval process for a folder.

This activates status management for all documents in this folder.

       2.      Define the approval steps

The approval process can be divided into several steps, such as content check, spelling check, layout check, and so on.

       3.      You assign one or more approvers to each approval step.

The individual approval steps are usually carried out by various people or groups within the organizational structure of an enterprise. You can assign one or more users, groups, or roles to each approval step.

Approval by any one of the assigned approvers is sufficient for each approval step. As soon as one person has approved a step, the document is forwarded to the approver of the next step. If you want to make sure that the document is approved by more than one person, create more than one step.

If you have not defined any approvers for a folder, authors can publish the documents in this folder without going through the approval process.

 

Result

All documents that you create or change in this folder are subjected to the approval process. For more information on this process, see Publishing with an Approval Process.

If you change the approval process for a folder, this change only affects newly created documents or documents that still have the status In Progress. The previous list is still valid for documents that are already in the approval process (see Approval Status of a Document.)