Workflow Updates
We are excited to announce that we have three new Enhancements to Workflow that we hope help you configure your Workflows with more flexibility, and ease of use. Details are below!
Moving Workflow BACK resets ALL Approvals that would be affected
If you need to ever move your Workflow BACK in it's process, whether for re-reviews, or maybe a missed item, any and all Approval Stages that would be between your Current Stage, and the one you are moving back to will have their Approval Selection & Approval Notes will be automatically reset for them. See the example below for more detail.
Example:
The Contract is currently in the Final Internal Review Stage (1)
Due to findings during the Final Internal Review, we need to move the Contract BACK to the Legal Approval Stage (2)
The Stages of Legal Approval, CFO Approval, & Budget Approval have ALL had Approvals given and notes left prior (A)
When we go to move the Workflow BACK, we will receive this pop-up message below.
This pop-up will only appear IF there are Approval Stages that will be affected.
Once the Contract is moved back, when the Users assigned to the Legal Approval Stage get their email notification and come in, their Approval Scorecard will look like the screenshot below, with the selection on Pending, and the Notes are clear.
Once the User, or Users, Approve the Stage, they will NOT receive another pop-up warning of resetting any Notes for future Stages, all have been reset in the initial move-back!
All previously left Approval Notes are still stored under the Notes tab however for History and audit purposes.
Additional Notifications on Approval and/or Rejections
On a Workflow Stage, the Individual Users assigned used to be the only Users who would receive any automatic emails about Approvals and Rejections. However now, you can configure additional Users to be notified, but ONLY when Approvals or Rejections take place, not for the overall Workflow Stage or any Reminders.
We see this being used most heavily on Stages where you only have ONE Approver, but need someone else to be notified automatically if that person Rejects. You could assign either the Users assigned to the Previous Stage, or maybe even someone who is not usually a part of the Workflow, but it needs to be escalated to them.
To Configure these Users, you'll need to head to Company Admin --> Contract Administration --> Workflow Template Administration. From there, select the Workflow you'd like to edit, and go to Stage Configuration. Once you are seeing your workflow laid out in the green table with all your assignees and reminders listed, click on the name of the Stage you want to add these Additional Users to, Department Review in the example below.
At the bottom of the Stage Configuration pop-out that appears, you'll see the Set Approvals (A) dropdown. This must be set to either Any or All for the Additional Notice (B) link to appear.
When you click that link, you'll get another pop-up, seen below (B) , where you can configure the Users, or Responsible Parties, you'd like to be notified on either Approvals, Rejections, or Both.
After you have configured your Users, you'll see the number of Users assigned in parenthesis next to the appropriate label (C). This will display in both the Configuration area, as well as in a Contract Container when you open the Stage Assignee pop-up. The reminders send out to these Users will look just like the Approval Summary Emails that are sent to the regular Assignees, and will follow the same system rules for when to send, meaning either on every Approval, or only once All have Approved.
NOTE: At this time, Users can only be Assigned from the Company Admin area. The links in the Container are purely Informational. Per-Contract editing of these Users will be part of future Workflow Container enhancements.
Skip Stages after Approvals (if configured)
While the automatic advancement of your Workflows is a helpful benefit to Approval Stages, one issue has always been: "What if the next Stage after the Approval Stage is optional, and configured to be skippable?"
In the past, there wasn't an option to prevent this, and the Workflow would simply move forward, and the next person up was alerted.
Now however, if your Workflows have Stages configured to be Skippable, AND you also are using Approvals, the User who gives final Approval on the Stage will now be able to select from a pop-up, which applicable Stage they'd like to move the Workflow to.
Example:
Our Contract, and Workflow, are currently in the Legal Approval Stage (A).
Our CFO Approval & Budget Approval Stages (B) are both Configured to be skippable in our Admin Set-Up.
Final Internal Review (C), the Stage right before Active, is NOT Configured to be Skippable however, since we would always want to ensure this Stage was complete prior to becoming Active.
When the final User in Legal Approval Approves the Stage, they will receive a pop-up like the one below, that gives them the option of which Stage they'd like to move to next. They will be able to see the User or Role who will be alerted, as well as the information that the Stage can be skipped. We hope that last column helps to alleviate any concern your End Users may see when seeing this pop-up for the first time.
If the User hits, Cancel on this pop-up, they will be returned to the Contract, and their previous Approval will not be saved. A stage must be selected and Advance To Stage clicked for the Workflow to Advance.
System Patches
We have also released many smaller performance updates over the last month that we hope helps with system speed and responsiveness, especially for non-Admin Users.