Steps that Make Up Approval Workflows

Approval workflows are made up of one or more steps that define who is assigned to review and approve the record undergoing approval and, optionally, the conditions under which the step occurs.

You add steps to an approval workflow in the Approval Steps grid on the Workflow tab of the Approvals Configuration form in Configuration > Workflow > Approval Workflows.

You can create simple steps or more complex, multitiered conditional steps.

For each step you define:

• Any conditions to determine if a step will be performed or skipped and, if skipped, what will happen next.
• The specific employees and/or roles (such as project manager, project supervisor, and so on) who can review and/or approve the record for the step.
• Whether or not those who are assigned to the step can edit the record, and if it is edited, whether the step will be approved after editing or the approval workflow will be restarted, beginning with step 1.
• Whether or not all, some, or only one of those assigned to the step must approve the record.
• The number of days that are allotted for those assigned to approve the record to complete the step. Reminder alerts can be sent to employees based on this information.
• What happens when a record is rejected.

You also assign alerts to be sent for each step of an approval workflow. The alerts let employees know when a record is ready for their review, when it is past due, when it is approved, and so on.