Understand Dual Approval

When you use dual approval with Control Center's fund approval hierarchy, the process of approving raised edits and unapproving raised edits differs from that when you use a fund approval hierarchy alone.

About the Approval Level or Approved On Value

The Approval Level column that you can view for edit test results identifies an internal number that Control Center uses to track the overall approval level for edit test results. Understanding this value is helpful when you use dual approval. In the Edit Test Results grid, the column is named Approval Level. In the Validation Results grid, the column is named Approved On.

If you use Control Center without use of a fund approval hierarchy, the Approval Level column shows a 0 for an unapproved result and shows a 1 for an approved result. Because you do not use a fund approval hierarchy to assign user roles to Control Center users who approve and unapprove results, all Control Center users are assigned a user role of Preparer (role 1) by default. An unapproved raised edit has an initial value of 0. When a Control Center user approves a raised edit, its Approval Level value changes from 0 to 1.

If you use Control Center with a fund approval hierarchy, the Approval Level column shows a 0 for an unapproved result and shows a 1 for an approved result .You use a fund approval hierarchy to assign user roles 1, 2, 3, and/or 4 to Control Center users who approve and unapprove results, and one or more Control Center users can approve a raised edit at one or more levels. An unapproved raised edit has an initial value of 0. When a Control Center user approves a raised edit at the first applicable level of the fund approval hierarchy, its Approval Level value changes from 0 to 1. All edits need at a minimum an Approval Level of 1 for full approval. However, the raised edit is not considered fully approved until a Control Center user approves the edit at the highest user role level it requires. For example, you set up an edit so that it cannot clear until a high-level approver such as a Unit Manager (role 4) approves it. If a Preparer (role 1) approves the raised edit, its Approval Level value changes from 0 to 1. But the raised edit does not fully clear until it receives approval at the Unit Manager (role 4) level. 

If you use Control Center with a fund approval hierarchy that requires dual approval, the Approval Level column shows a value of -1 for an unapproved result. It next shows a 0 for a result approved by an Annotator (level 0) or by a user with a high role level. The initial approval always occurs at the Annotator level, regardless of the Control Center user who approves it. When a second person approves the edit at a level higher than Annotator, the Approval Level shows a 1 for an approved result. All edits need at a minimum an Approval Level of 1 for full approval. The raised edit is not considered fully approved until a Control Center user approves the edit at the highest user role level it requires. For example, you set up an edit so that it cannot clear until a high-level approver such as a Unit Manager (role 4) approves it. If an Annotator approves it, the Approval Level changes from -1 to 0. If a Preparer (role 1) then approves the raised edit, its Approval Level value changes from 0 to 1. But the raised edit does not fully clear until it receives approval at the Unit Manager (role 4) level. The system also confirms that two different Control Center user approved the edit before clearing it.

About Approving Raised Edits with Dual Approval

When you use dual approval, you see an additional Annotator column in the edit test or validation results grid that you can view in Control Center, supplementing the other roles in the fund approval hierarchy. The edits raise as a -1 and the system reflects initial approval as Annotator (Level 0) regardless of the approver's user role level. That is, the first Eagle user who approves an edit can only approve it at role level 0, even if that Eagle user has a high level role. 

Because all edits need at a minimum a role level of 1 for final approval, this prevents a role level 0 Annotator from approving any raised edits to clear. Approval at the user role level that is equal to the edit test tolerance level acts as last approval and triggers a check that more than one unique user ID approved the edit. If another approval user exists, the edit clears. If one does not exist, the approval fails with a warning. 

An Eagle user assigned an Annotator (Role 0) level role in User Administration can never fully approve an edit to clear. When you use the dual approval process, a single user cannot fully approve an edit to clear unless that user has the rights to perform Final Approvals. 

Not all edits selected in Control Center meet the dual approval requirements. Up until full approval, Eagle users can continue to add notes to the edit’s approval history. For general information about the options you can use to approve raised edits, see Approve Results at Multiple Levels. 

About Unapproving Edits with Dual Approval

When you use the fund approval hierarchy and approve edits, you can select the Unapprove As option to unapprove one or more edits and you can use the Unapprove All As option to unapprove all the approved edits on the page at a specified approval role level. However, when you set up your status map for use with dual approval, you can no longer use the Unapprove All As option for cleared edits. This prevents a full reset of all edits. You can select more than one edit to unapprove using the Unapprove As option.