View and Change Approval Statuses
- Becky Weinberg (Unlicensed)
- Pamela Totas (Deactivated)
This section describes how to use the Approval Status to view active approvals, change an approval status, and add, modify, and delete an approval comment.
Work with the Approval Status Window
To open the Approval Status window:
From any Eagle window, click the Eagle Navigator button to access the Eagle Navigator.
Enter Reporting in the Start Search text box.
Click the Reporting Center link to access the Reporting Center component.
You see the Client Reporting workspace.Open the Client Reporting folder, and double-click the Administrative folder.
You see the Client Reporting options.Double-click Approval Status.
You see the Approval Status window.
The Approval Status window contains the options described in the following table:
Option | Description |
## per page | The window displays fifty records per page by default. To change this setting, click ## per page at the bottom left corner of the window and select a value. The window groups records by status, so the number of records displayed on the window might not exactly match the page setting. Rather than only show a subset of the approvals related to a given batch, the Approval Status window displays all of the associated approvals to provide a more complete workflow. |
Next | Click to advance to the next set of approvals. |
Last | Click to advance to the last set of approvals. |
Previous | Click to display the previous set of approvals. |
First | Click to display the first set of approvals based on the sort that is applied to the window. |
Right-click popup menu | Click a link or right-click on an approval and select an option from the popup menu. Right-clicking on a column header displays a popup menu with options for sorting columns in ascending/descending order, grouping columns, and saving view settings. For example, the Save View Settings option allows any customizations you make to the Approval Status window to be saved and applied again when you return to the window. |
Change Approval Status | Allows you to update the status of an approval. An approval can be updated if it displays an ellipses in the Status column. Select an approval and click Change Approval Status. You see the Change Approval Status dialog box. Click Approve to change the Approval status value to Approved. Click Reject to change the Approval status value to Rejected. Add any relevant comments in the Add Comments section without changing the status. A history of comments is stored in the database per approval record. To update the status of more than one approval, press Control + Shift when clicking the ellipsis in the Status column. You can only update multiple approvals with the same status. All selected approvals must be assigned to you and eligible for a status change. |
View Approval Comments | Click to display the Approval Status Comments dialog box. This dialog box displays a history of user comments added to an approval and allows you to add, edit, and delete comments.
The Status column allows you to track when an approval is approved, rejected, or a comment is added. You can change the order of the columns by clicking a column heading and dragging it to the new location. You can also sort the data in this dialog box by any of the available columns. Click once on a column heading to sort by that column. |
Current Filters | Displays the Filter Approvals dialog box, which allows you to filter the Approval Status window by status. You can filter approvals by more than one status by selecting multiple status boxes, or filter by due date and effective date. Select either the Filter Approvals by Due Date or the Filter Approvals by Effective Date check box to enable that filter. You can filter approvals by the current date, current month, specific date, and range of dates, or apply a date rule. The Show comments as an icon check box replaces text in the Comments column of the Approval Status window with an icon to save space on the window. The Show only my approvals check box filters the window so that it only displays approvals that are assigned to you. If you do not select this check box, approvals that have not been assigned are displayed on the Approval Status window, but you cannot change the status of those approvals. |
Show All Approvals | Displays approvals that are accessible to you through your business group. |
Show Only My Approvals | Displays approvals assigned to you. Approvals that are not assigned to you are grayed out. No updates can be made to those approvals. |
Show Approved Approvals | Displays approved approvals only. |
Show Rejected Approvals | Displays rejected approvals only. |
Filter Approvals | Displays the Filter Approvals dialog box, which is described under the Current Filters option. |
Show Approvals Assigned to me | Displays the approvals that are assigned to you. |
Show Pending Approvals | Displays pending approvals only. |
Approval Status Menu | Displays a list of the other Client Reporting functions you can access from this window, such as Batch Status, Batch Status and Control, Custom Distributions, Maintain Batches, Maintain Approvals, and Maintain Views. |
Configure | Select this link to display the Configure dialog box, which allows you to filter approvals by status, due date, and effective date and control the number of items displayed per page. |
Quick Links | The options on this menu provide quick access to:
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Search Menu | You can perform a text search or use the Search menu. To perform a text search, enter the text or string in the Search field, located to the right of the Search menu and click Enter. Client Reporting searches through the information on the Approval Status window for a match. If a match is found, the row is highlighted. To use the Search menu, click the arrow next to the Search link. The standard Windows Find dialog box appears. |
Click to display the Print dialog box and print the list of approvals. | |
Refresh | Click to refresh the data on the Approval Status window. |
Change Rejected Auto Approvals to Pending
If an Auto Approval is rejected, you can set the approval to a Pending status. This allows the Auto Approval to be processed again.
This feature is only available for Auto Approvals and only for Auto Approvals with a current status of Rejected.
Work With Rejections
When rejecting an approval with an order value greater than one, you can enable the Reject preceding approvals check box to send the batch back to a prior approval stage.
Complete the fields on the Change Approval Status dialog box as described in the following table.
Option | Description |
Stage | Select this check box to indicate an approval stage. |
Set Status to | Specifies whether the intermediate approvals should be set to Pending or Rejected. For example, if an approval with an order value of five is being rejected and sent back to order value one, the Set Status to setting allows order values two, three and four to be set to Rejected or Pending. |
Reject to | Rejects the batch back to a specific dependency order level or to a specific approval.
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Add Comments | Your PACE System Administrator can configure the Comments field to be required when an approval is rejected or changed to a Rejected status. This provides you with more detail as to why an approval is rejected. If configured, approval comments are required when an approval status is updated to a status of Rejected. This does not impact the Comments field when an approval status is updated to a status value of Approved. If configured, and the Comments field is not populated when changing the approval status to Rejected, an error message appears. You must enter a comment in the Change Approval Status dialog box to continue. You can modify the selected comments using the Approval Status Comments dialog box. A set of standard reasons for approval status changes can be maintained in PACE and you can select from this list when changing an approval status value. The list of available approval status comments is maintained under the internal code instance 10289, iCR Comments. These code values are listed within the drop down list on the Change Approval Status dialog box. The code values are sorted alphabetically by the long description of the code value. |
Stage | Select this check box to indicate an approval stage. |
Reject an Approval Within a Single Order Value
An approval can be rejected and restored to an approval with the same order value. If the approvals are not dependent on each other, you can reject the workflow back to an approval that has the same order value.
The full Change Approval Status dialog box is displayed when an approval with an order value of 1 has its status value changed. This dialog box supports rejection of an approval back to preceding levels.
The Only this approval in the level check box allows you to reject approvals at a more granular level. When an approval is changed to a status of Rejected and the Reject preceding approvals check box is enabled, the Reject to section of the Change Approval Status dialog box becomes enabled.
If you select a specific approval from the Approval drop down list in this section, the Only this approval in the level check box becomes enabled. If this check box is enabled when an approval is rejected, only the approval selected in the drop down list is changed to a status of Rejected. If this setting is not enabled when an approval is rejected, all approvals with the same order value as the selected approval are changed to a status of Rejected.
The Reject for this Client check box within the Change Approval Status dialog box is populated by default when you elect to change a client level approval status to Rejected and the approval is rejected back to a preceding approval. Only the selected client within the selected approval is rejected.
Progress Clients Separately Through the Batch Process
You can separately progress clients or entities through the batch workflow. If approvals were defined at the client or entity level and were assigned an Approval Method of Approve Each, approvals can progress across order values and batch stages independently.
For example, if a batch contains two clients and three Before Run client level approvals with order values one through three, one client can have all three approvals approved and progress to the imaging stage while the other client remains pending at order value one.
When separately progressing client approvals, the batch level approval becomes actionable when at least one client at the preceding order value was approved. If more than one approval was created at the preceding order value, the batch level approval becomes actionable when at least one client was approved for each of the approvals at the preceding order value.
Reject Multiple Approval Statuses
The Change Approval Status (Multiple) dialog box allows you to reject multiple approval statuses.
The Reject for the selected Clients/Entities check box is enabled by default when an approval is rejected. If multiple approval statuses are selected and you do not enable this check box when you change the status to Rejected, all approval statuses at the selected order value are rejected.
Batch Processing Methods
There are two client type batch processing method options available on the Batch Override Maintenance window.
Process Client and Contact Independently. A batch set up as Process Client and Contact Independently treats clients and contacts separately.
Process Client and Contact Together. This option treats all packages belonging to a client and its contact as one unit.
These batch processing methods support client level batches. When using these methods, the Custom Clients Filter setting on the Create Approval dialog box does not apply, since criteria based batches do not support batch overrides.
The column PROCESS_TYPE on the RULESDBO.CR_SCHEDULES table contains the values for these columns. A batch set up as Process Client and Contact Independently has a value of I, and a batch set up as Process Client and Contact Together will has a value of T. The batch definition defaults to Process Client and Contact Independently.
Allow Only Client to Approve
The Create/Edit Approval dialog box contains the Allow Only Clients to Approve option. This option determines if the approval runs for a client only or for a client and overridden contacts.
An Approval created with an approval method of Approve Each and Allow Only Clients to Approve has a value of 5 in the VERSION_INFO field of the RULESDBO.CR_APPROVALS table. An Approval created with an approval method of Approve Any One and Allow Only Clients to Approve has a value of 6.
The column STATUS_HIST_INST in the CR_APP R_STATUS_COMMENTS table handles this functionality.
A batch set up as Process Client and Contact Independently supports the existing functionality. Currently, the client reporting engine takes each package and calls all the approvals for the package in the order specified. This is done whether the package is for a client or contact. If any one of the approval fails, then it fails that package. As client and its contacts share the same approval status record, approvals are processed for only one package either client or it’s contacts which ever gets first in the queue. For example, suppose a batch has one client CLIENT1 and 2 contacts CONTACT1, CONTACT2 and, 3 approvals APPR1, APPR2, APPR3 at level 1, 2 and 3 respectively. The client reporting engine picks all the packages for CLIENT1, CONTACT1, and CONTACT2 and processes the approvals in the order specified.
CLIENT1 (APR1, APR2, APR3)
CONTACT1 (APR1, APR2, APR3)
CONTACT2 (APR1, APR2, APR3)
If an approval at any level fails, the next level approval is not processed for any given package. In the preceding scenario, if APPR2 is rejected for CLIENT then APPR3 is not processed.
Since all share the same approval status record, only one goes through the approval process and the rest share the approval status. If CLIENT1 goes through its approval process then CONTACT1 and CONTACT2 automatically get approved. If CLIENT1 gets rejected then CONTACT1 and CONTACT2 also gets rejected.
Process Client and Contact Together
A batch set up as Process Client and Contact Together and with approvals set up as Approve Each and with or without Allow Only Clients to Approve supports processing the client and contact packages together. If a batch has the Process Client and Contacts Together option selected, it should have at least one “non ignorable” approval for each stage. Otherwise, guaranteeing that the client and its contact move together as one unit is not possible. This treats all packages that belong to a client and its contact as one unit and call approvals in the order specified. The client reporting engine accumulates all the packages that belong to a client and its contacts. If a batch has one client, CLIENT1, and 2 contacts, CONTACT1 and CONTACT2:
The approval is called for all 3 packages together so that they move as one unit:
APPR1 (CLIENT1, CONTACT1, CONTACT2)
APPR2 (CLIENT1, CONTACT1, CONTACT2)
APPR3 (CLIENT1, CONTACT1, CONTACT2)
The approval is called for all clients and contacts regardless of whether it is rejected for a client or any one of its contacts. In the preceding example, APPR1 is called for all 3 packages (for example. CLIENT 1, CONTACT1 and CONTACT2) even though it is rejected for CLIENT1.
If an approval at any level is rejected for any of the clients and its contacts, then processing of the approvals does not proceed to subsequent levels. In the preceding example, if APPR1 is rejected for CLIENT1, CONTACT1 or CONTACT2, then APPR2 and APPR3 will not be processed. They will be in a pending state.
Comments are added every time an approval is processed. In the preceding example, if all approvals were processed for a client and its contact then there would be a total of 9 comments.
If all approvals are approved for a client and its contact then all packages move to the next stage.
Manual Processing
To work with manual processing:
If you manually approve, the packages for the client and its contact move to the next stage together with only one comment added.
If you manually reject, the packages for the client and its contact are not moved to the next stage and there is only one comment added.
If you manually set the status as pending, the client and its contact are set to pending and there is only one comment added.
Auto Approvals
An auto approval set-up as Allow Only Clients to Approve calls the underlying DLL for the client only. The contact waits until the client approves Client Only Approval. The column SUSPENDED in the PACEMASTERDBO.CR_BATCH_DETAIL table has a value of suspended (1) until the client approves.
Each approval, regardless of its set-up, only has one status. No approvals have multiple statuses for the client and its overridden contacts.
When an auto approval set-up to run for the client and overridden contacts calls the underlying DLL, it will pass the instance number relating to the contact if called by contact. Before this change, the instance number relating to the client was passed to the DLL.
The process of moving clients and contacts as one unit works only if all of the clients and contact packages are processed by one client reporting engine. If they are processed by different client reporting engines then it will fail.
Review a Batch
The Review Batch option displays the Review Batch dialog box, where you can see summary and package level batch details for the selected batch. To use this option select an approval, right-click, and click Review Batch from the popup menu.
When a package in the batch has progressed through the imaging stage of the workflow, the Report column on the Packages tab of the Review Batch dialog box displays a link to an imaged report. Double-click the link to display the report in the Advanced Report Viewer. While reviewing an imaged reporting package, you can change an approval status. Click Approval Status.
This functionality is also available on the Batch Status window. See Monitor Batches
Evaluate Workflow Events
The Evaluate Workflow Events option evaluates all of the current batch and approval records in Client Reporting and, if necessary, updates the batch and approval statuses. To use this option, select a batch, right-click, and select Evaluate Workflow Events from the popup menu.
A manual approval causes the Client Reporting engine to run, enabling the next dependent approval or progressing the batch to the next stage. However, if an approval status record is updated directly through the database and not through the Client Reporting’s Approval Status window, the Evaluate Workflow Events functionality recognizes the updated approval status value and either enables the next dependent approval record or advances the batch to the next stage.
Configure Approval Statuses
The Configure link on the Approval Status window displays the Configure dialog box. This dialog box contains the Approval Status tab, and the General tab.
Approval Status Tab
The Approval Status tab allows you to configure settings for the approval statuses displayed on the Approval Status window.
A description of the options on the Approval Status tab follows.
Option | Description |
Use this Custom Views | Select a defined custom view for display. |
Filter Approvals by Status | Allows you to filter approvals on the Approval Status window by the following statuses: all, pending, approved, and rejected. |
Filter Approvals by Due Date | Allows you to filter batches on the Approval Status window by due date. |
Filter Approvals by Effective Date | Allows you to filter batches on the Approval Status window by effective date. |
Show Comments as an icon | Select to replace text in the Comments column of the Approval Status window with an icon to save horizontal space on the window. |
Show only my approvals | Select to display only your approvals on the Approval Status window. |
Page Size | Allows you to specify how many items you want to display per page. |