Multiple Approvers

Approval tasks are included in automated workflows to obtain digital sign off on changes from the necessary approvers. A new feature has just been added that dramatically increases the flexibility of an organization’s approval process.

This is what the Assignment section of an approval task used to look like:

And here’s what it looks like today:

Can you spot the difference?

It may not look like much, but this small button will make a lot of change managers very happy. When you click on the button, you can add another approver.

This person could, for example, act as a backup in case the primary approver is not available.

Once two or more approvers have been selected, the Required approvals field becomes available. In this field you can specify how many people need to have provided their approval before the status of the approval task gets updated to “Approved”. This can be especially useful when a larger group needs to provide approval. Such approval groups can be maintained easily as approval task templates.

When an approver or change manager opens an approval task, it is easy to see the progress that has been made.

Note also the link to the change summary PDF file. This link varies depending on the approver who is looking at the task. It makes it a little easier for the approver to find the change summary that was generated specifically for him/her.