Once all your Approval Configuration, Security Groups and Approval Rules have been set up then you are ready to start sending out your Contracts for Approval.  


When the Approvals feature is switched on for the first time then all contracts are set to have a default Approval status of "Pending", you may wish to Bulk Update all your existing contract to have an "Approved" status and only send out new Contracts for Approval, read this article to learn more about how to Bulk Update.


Creating an Approval

Approval of a Contract can be sought once the contract has been created, to send a Contract for Approval:


Open up the required Contract, current status of the record will be [Pending]


Fig 1 - Initial Contract Approval status


Click on [...] to the right of the screen and select the option 'Submit for Approval' 

Fig 2 - Submit for Approval


A pop up screen will appear giving options to select the appropriate Approval Route for this Contract, the options that are displayed here are dependant on your Approval Configuration.  


Fig 3 - Selecting an approval Route


Select the appropriate appropriate Approval Route for this Contract using the radio button options


  • Existing Rule - Any existing rules will be displayed, if multiple rules apply, use the drop down list to select the correct rule.  To help decide the correct rule you can view the rule parameters by clicking on the cog icon.  A pop up will appear displaying the Rule details, if an Approval Group has been selected in the rule, the members of the Group can be viewed by clicking on the Group name.


Fig 4 - Approval Rule Details

  • Self Approve (no Approval required) - This will allow an Administrator to approve the contract themselves
  • Use Supervisor - This will send the Approval request to the users Supervisor as defined against the User's profile, the Supervisor's name and email address will be displayed, if no Supervisor has been defined then the option will reflect this.
  • Define Approval Chain - User can create an Approval chain themselves by using the drop down list and search to add People or Approval Groups, use the blocks at the end of the blue field selections to order the approval flow.


Fig 5 - Approval chain

  • Type - Define how you wish the Approval flow to progress
    • Sequential - each Person / Approval Group in turn
    • Parallel - all Person / Approval Groups are notified at once


Click [Next] - There will be an option to add a Note to the Approver's, once complete, all People / Approval Groups will receive an email requesting Approval.

Note: At this stage if you have selected a User that have been unseated (licence removed) then the system will warn you of this so you can go back and adjust - we cannot prevent you from selecting an unseated User but we can warn you that you so you can made adjustments.

An Approval request email will be generated.


Fig 6 - Approval request email


Your Contract Approval Status will now display as [In Progress].  You can click on this status bar to see where the Approval is currently assigned to, there will be a green tick next to every Approver that has already actioned their request.


Fig 7 - In Progress Approval


The [Approval Activity] button can be used to view the full details of the approval request.  For full details about the Approval Activity screen click here.


Fig 8 - Approval Activity screen