Approvals_user

Projects, Product assets and Subject assets can be signed off by several stakeholders. With approvals, you can see the approval status and the approval history. If you are assigned as the responsible stakeholder, you can start, approve and reject approvals.

Target groups

Users
Solution administrators

Context

Approvals are available in projects, marketing plans, tactics, campaigns, and subjects.

Prerequisites

To start, approve, or reject an approval, you must be assigned to the respective role or team role. To delete or ignore an approval, you need the respective permissions.

Introduction

Projects, campaigns and subjects typically involve several stakeholders. Therefore, the approval of a project or campaign is not a single step and requires that all responsible stakeholders sign off their area of responsibility. In the censhare Dedicated solutions, Approvals provide a simple signing-off process. Approvals consist of a multistage signing-off action.

For a comprehensible approval process, censhare stores and displays each action that an assigned stakeholder of a project carries out. The progress bar shows the overall approval status at a glance.

Approvals vs. Approve workflow step

Approvals are not linked or restricted to the respective approval workflow steps. You can start and perform approvals in any workflow step. For example, do the budget approval in the Plan workflow step, creative and editorial approvals in the In creation workflow step, technical approval in the Enrich workflow step, and the legal and final approvals in the Approve workflow step.

Approval types

The following approval types are available in the censhare Dedicated solutions. The available approval types depend on your user role, team member role, and the general configuration of the system. If necessary, contact your censhare administrator.

Approval actions and status

Each approval action results in the change of the approval status. Optionally, you can comment an approval action. The target status and comments are stored and display in the Approval history.

Action	Description
Start	Indicates that an approval is in progress.
Approve	Indicates that the responsible user has signed-off the approval.
Reject	Indicates that the responsible user has rejected the approval.
Ignore	Indicates that the approval is not relevant for the current project or subject.
Delete	Deletes the current approval status (started, approved, rejected or ignored) and resets the approval. The approval can be started again. Does not delete the approval history.

Approval history

The Approval history table shows a chronological list of all approval actions in the current project or subject. The table is sorted chronologically. The latest actions display at the top.

The table also shows actions of other users, and from approval types that you cannot execute. The table shows the following details:

• Date: Shows the day and time of the action. Latest display at the top.

• Status: Shows the target status of the respective action.

• Approval type: Shows the approval type of the action.

• User: Shows the user that performed the approval action.

• Asset version: Each approval action creates a new asset version.

• Comment: Shows the optional comment to the respective action.

Key steps

1. View and start approvals

2. Reject or approve an approval

3. Ignore or delete an approval

View and start approvals

Note: Depending on the configuration of your system, approvals can be started automatically. If the Approvals actions widget shows the APPROVE and REJECT buttons at start, skip this step and go directly to the Approve or reject an approval.

To view and start and approval:

1. Open a Project, Campaign, Tactic, Marketing plan, or Subject in an asset page.

2. Go to the Approvals tab.

3. In the Approvals actions widget, click START APPROVAL to initiate the respective approval, write a comment (optional) and click OK. If multiple approvals are available to you, each must be started separately.

Approve or reject an approval

1. In the relevant item, APPROVE or REJECT the approval, write a comment (optional), and click OK to confirm. The approval status changes, and the approval action appears at the top of the Approval history table:

   • If you REJECT, the APPROVE and REJECT buttons remain visible. You can perform further actions and write comments to each action you perform. Each action is recorded and displays in the Approval history table.

   • If you APPROVE, the APPROVE and REJECT buttons disappear. The approval is finished. The status below changes accordingly, and the approved action displays in the Approval history table.

2. To resume the approval, you must delete it first and start the approval again. For details, see the following section.

Disable or resume an approval process

Note: To perform the following action, the respective role and permission are required. If you need the permission for your work, contact an administrator.

If an approval is not relevant, or if you want to resume and restart an approval, do the following:

1. Move the cursor over the title bar of the Approvals actions widget and click

   

   . The actions dialog opens and displays all available approval actions for each item. Select the desired action:

   • To disable an approval action, click IGNORE. Write a comment (optional) and click OK. Ignored approvals cannot be started, rejected, or approved. Ignored approvals are removed from the Approval actions. In the approvals list, they display as

     

     . The ignore action is recorded and displays in the Approval history table.

   • To resume an approval, click DELETE, write a comment (optional) and click OK. You can only delete approvals that were started. Deleted approval are removed from the Approvals list and can be started again. The delete action is recorded and displays in the Approval history table. Previous actions also remain visible there.

2. If an approval is not started yet, you can start it in the dialog.

3. To close the dialog, click OK at the bottom right.

Result

You have approved a project or subject.