In order to add an approval Workflow at the Project Level, you must be a Project Admin
- Adding or customizing a Workflow at the Project level automatically makes the workflow active for that project.
- Workflows added at the Project level will not be available for use in other projects. If you want to create a workflow that can be used in multiple projects, add it at the Company level (instructions here).
Where is the Approval Workflow Menu?
- From the Admin menu, select Project Admin
- Navigate to the project you would like to add an Approval Workflow to using the Project Selector in the upper right corner.
- In the Management menu, select the Approval Workflow button.
Add a New Approval Workflow
- Select New to create a new Approval Workflow from scratch, OR select Copy to use an existing Approval Workflow as a template.
- Select a meaningful name for your new workflow.
- Edit the New First Step block. Select the Edit button.
- Customize the workflow step, using the “Customizing a Workflow Step” directions below. After your step is complete, click Save.
- Continue to add additional steps by clicking Add Step, and customizing as you did previously.
- Once all steps are complete, click the Exit the Workflow Editor button in the upper right corner.
Customizing a Workflow Step
Approval Workflows are highly customizable. Read these descriptions to understand each option in the Edit Workflow Step dialog.
- Name: Select a meaningful name for the step. This name can be customized when copied at the project level, if needed.
- Description: Description of what is happening in the step (optional).
- Allow editing at this step: When checked, reviewers can also edit documents, or upload new documents. When unchecked, reviewers will not be able to edit or upload documents at this step.
- Rejection Step: Determines which step the approval will move to if the step is rejected. The rejection step tells the workflow where to go next if a reviewer clicks Reject when they review the approval.
- Requires re-approval on rejection: When checked, if there are multiple reviewers and one reviewer rejects the step, all other reviewers will have to re-approve the step. If left unchecked, the previous approvals will stand.
- Process rejections first: When checked, if any reviewer in the step has clicked reject the rejection process occurs instantly, instead of waiting for other approvers.
- Enable Timeouts: When timeouts are enabled, reviewers have a set number of days to respond to a workflow. If they fail to respond, the document will move to the timeout step.
- Timeout Step: Determines which step the approval will move to if the reviewer(s) fail to respond to the workflow in the specified timeframe.
- Timeout Days: If Enable Timeouts is selected, the admin must select a number of timeout days. many users select 3-5 days. If the number of timeout days pass without a response, the document automatically moves to the timeout step.
- Reviewers Required to Approve: When “All step reviewers must approve” is not selected, the admin must select a number of reviewers that are required to approve. This cannot exceed the total number of reviewers listed in the step.
- All step reviewers must approve: When selected, every reviewer at this step must approve the step before the workflow can continue.
- Employee button: Use the Employee button to add employees as reviewers at this step.
- External button: Use the External button to add a single reviewer from a company listed on the current project.
- Company button: Use the Company button to add an entire company listed on the current project as a reviewer.
Who Will Be Able to Use the Project Level Workflow?
After you create or copy a workflow at the project level, it will be active only for the current project. Any employee in your company will be able to initiate a workflow from the Approvals tab in their Documents dashboard, as long as they are in the correct project.
Hints and Tips:
- You can use an existing workflow as a template for a new proejct-level workflow. Click the Copy button, and then select the workflow you would like to use as a template.
- When you create a workflow using the Copy button, the original workflow won’t be changed. You can edit the copy as needed.
- If you use Copy to add a workflow, be sure to change the name to make it easy to distinguish between the two different workflows.
- Use to remove a step from the workflow.
- Use to move a step to a new location in the workflow.