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User Approval Tasks

Workflow processes often require approvals to be given before a workflow can progress. Approvals are a critical stage in any workflow; they restrict approval permissions to certain individuals or groups and record details of the approval or rejection for auditing purposes. Once an approval task is completed, the workflow progresses down certain dependency paths, based on the approval or rejection decision.

Generally, approvals are completed within vFire Core, with an analyst logging into the system, locating the approval and completing it. The User Approval Task provides a similar function with some key differences:

A person flagged as a user must exist for the User Approval Task to be assigned.
Users can approve or reject these tasks using the vFire Self Service portal; however, they cannot forward User Approval Tasks internally or externally.

The benefits of using the User Approval Task include:

The approver does not need to know how to navigate the full vFire Core interface. Learning how to use vFire Self Service requires less training than the full application.
The approver does not need an analyst license; this means an unlimited number of users can be approvers through vFire Self Service.
A person can set up as both an analyst and a user through their person details record, allowing analysts to complete User Approvals through vFire Self Service. This configuration can free up shared licenses for occasional users.
User Approval Tasks can also be approved in the main application by full analysts with Approver rights on the Tasks tab of their Workflow Management security role. This may be necessary when a user is unavailable to handle an approval that has been assigned to them.

When a User Approval task is added to a workflow, a user must be linked to the task. Request managers can assign one or more users to the User Approval task when adding the task to a workflow template or request (if the approval has not yet become active). If multiple users are added, then when the task is activated, a separate User Approval task is created for each one.

Creating a User Approval Task

Search for the Request Details window, if it is not already on screen.
Select the Update Dependencies explorer option on the Request Details window, or the button from the toolbar. The Task Dependencies window appears with icons for task entity types displayed below the toolbar.

If the workflow template you have used to create the request already has tasks defined in it, you will see these tasks here. You can open them and change their details such as dates, assignment, or expenses. You can add new tasks or delete them from the current request without affecting the template.

Choose the task icon from the palette, and drag it to the window. Alternatively, right-click in the window, and from the menu that is displayed, select New and then the User Approval task entity type.
On the dependency diagram, double-click the User Approval task icon to view the User Approval Details window.
If needed, take action on the approval in order to edit the details.
Complete the common task fields on this task.
To link users to the task, expand the Recipients section and click Add.
In the Recipients window, find and select recipients.

People

Select to find and select users as the approvers. Specify the name and/or organization and click Find. From the results table, select each user you want to approve the task and click Add.

Other

Select to forward the Approval task to the person selected in a specific field when the task becomes active. This could be the user selected on the request, user who logged the request, and so on. You can then select from the drop-down list of available fields.

Alternatively, you can forward a User Approval task to a variable (such as the user selected on the request) using a Conditional Branching task.

Stakeholders

Select to send the approval task to a request stakeholder. A list of stakeholder roles is displayed. choose how many levels of available Stakeholders to display in the selection list.

Select the stakeholder role(s), and click Add.

To select the stakeholder of the person who authorized the request, select Authorized By/Stakeholder.

Click OK. The window is closed. The selected recipient(s) are added to the browse table on the Details window.
Repeat to add more recipients, then save the details.

When the User Approval task becomes active in the workflow, a separate user approval task will be created for each recipient. Only one user can be linked to a User Approval task once it has become active in the workflow so if you edit the task from the request, the Recipients tab is disabled.

Once the task is activated (that is, preceding tasks have been completed) the user receives an email, provided the user has an email address specified in their person details record. This email provides information on what needs to be approved and includes a web address. The user can click on the web address to be taken to the User Approval task in vFire Self Service (they may be required to log in before they can see the task).

Users can also locate their tasks by logging into the portal and viewing their Approval Summary page, or by selecting the Outstanding Approvals option in the menu. Once the task has been opened, they can approve or reject the task.

If the linked request has been opened by an analyst when a user wishes to approve a User Approval Task, a warning message is displayed, but the task can still be approved. However, if the task has been set to update the request status and the request has been opened by another analyst, the request cannot be updated.

User Approval tasks are completed automatically as soon as the user approves or rejects the task.