FORMS

Forms Approval

What is Forms Approval?

In a Forms Approval process, the respondent (user) fills in the BMP or Scheduled form that has been made available to him/her in the usual way. The Respondent can submit data as in all forms. The Respondent is able to attach documents as proof of the values he/she enters in the form.

When a form has a Forms approval object connected to it, the Submit button is replaced by a Send for approval button. When a Respondent answers a form he/she has received and clicks the Send for approval button, the form answer is sent for approval and the form answer status changes to 'READY FOR APPROVAL'.

A Forms approval process may be configured with one or more Forms Approval objects to create an approval process with several levels of approval ("sequential approval") and each Forms approval object may have more than one approver connected to it ("parallel approval").

After the Respondent submits the form, it is sent to the first approver for validation. "First approver" means the user or group defined in the Approval list connected to the first Forms Approval object, and may actually be more than one user/group, depending on how the Approval list is configured. Users can access the form in My Forms in My Responsibilities. Approvers who are registered with an e-mail address, will receive a notification message when the Respondent has submitted the form.

E-mail must be configured in the 'Mail' section in the Control Center in order to use Forms Approval. See the "Installation Guide" for more information.

Approver(s) checks the values respondent(s) has entered and can either approve them or reject them.

If the form cannot be approved, the approver rejects it and sends it back to the respondent(s) , along with any comments. Respondent(s) may then make changes and resubmit the form for approval.

If "One" is selected as Method in a Forms approval process, one approval operation is sufficient at each level, even if more than one user is defined as Approver in the Approval list. The first approver who approves the answer has met the Forms approval process requirement, even if more than one approver has been assigned to the form.

If the Method is "All", each approver in the Approval list must approve the data, and only when all of them have approved can the process move to the next level or the data be submitted. Approvers on the same level may approve in any order.

If Stay Open after Submit is checked in the form configuration, the respondent may edit values after sending the form for approval. If the respondent resubmits the form while the status is 'READY FOR APPROVAL' or after the form has been approved (Status is 'APPROVED'), he/she will see a warning message and must confirm resubmitting or cancel it. The form will pass through the approval process again.

Using Stay open after Submit in a form with Forms Approval is not recommended, since respondents will be able to change data that has already been approved.

See the Monitoring forms section for information on approving and rejecting forms.

Creating a Forms Approval process

A Forms Approval process is created by adding a Forms Approval object to a form. The Forms Approval object is used to set up the Forms Approval process.

A Forms Approval object can be added to any Form: BMP and Scheduled Forms. A Forms Approval object contains an Approvers property that can contain one or more Approval lists. The Forms approval process is activated for the Form when a form containing a correctly configured Forms Approval object is activated.

Properties

General

Name - the name of the Forms Approval object; the name "Forms Approval" is generated automatically but it may be changed
Description – an optional text describing the Forms Approval object
Method - select the approval method to use
- One - any approver in the list may approve, and one approval is enough
- All - if multiple approvers are defined in the Approval list, all of them must approve the form, but the order in which they approve is not significant ("parallel approval")
Approvers - the Approval list(s) containing the persons or groups who are responsible for approving the form after it is submitted by the respondent; click the icon to the right to select the Approval list you want to use; individual users must also be configured via an Approval list

Notification

Subject – the text that will be displayed in the subject field in the e-mail that is sent to the Approvers when the form is ready for approval; the following default text will be used if nothing else is configured:

The form ${this.object.name} is ready for approval (Period: ${this.object.distributionTime})

Message – the content of the e-mail that will be sent to the Approvers when the form is ready for approval; the following default message will be used if nothing else is configured:

Please approve the form ${this.object.name}

You can access it by clicking this link: <a href=${this.object.formUrl}>Form</a>

Tags should not contain white spaces, especially between $ and {.

E.g. $ { this.object.id } could be misinterpreted. The correct syntax is ${this.object.id}.

Audit

Modified by - the name of the last user to make changes to the object.
Last modified - the date and time when the object was last changed.
Created by - the name of the user who created the object.
Created - the date and time when the object was created.

Advanced

ID - a unique ID for the object.

By default, Corporater BMP assigns consecutive numbers to new objects.

You can change the ID to a value of choice that can include either letters or letter and number combinations.

The ID mustn't contain only numbers, include special characters such as ) ( . * } { + < > [ ], or match the name of a default object type in Corporater BMP.

Notifications to Respondent

Send an e-mail to all respondents registered to a form, to allow them to keep updated on approval status.

On Approval - mark the box if respondents should be notified of approvals when a submission is fully approved
On Partial Approval - mark the box if respondents should be notified of partial approvals at this stage; partial approval occurs when one approver approves a form with a Forms approval configured with Method = 'All' and more than one approver in the Approval list
On Rejection - mark the box if respondents should be notified of rejections at this stage

Notifications to Peers

Send an e-mail to all approvers registered in the Approval list in the same Forms approval object, to allow approvers to stay updated on approval status.

On Approval - mark the box if approvers on the same level should be notified of approvals when a submission is fully approved
On Partial Approval - mark the box if approvers on the same level should be notified of partial approvals at this stage; partial approval means when one approver approves a form with a Forms approval configured with Method = 'All' and more than one approver in the Approval list
On Rejection - mark the box if approvers on the same level should be notified of rejections at this stage

Notifications to Upstream Approvers

Send an e-mail to all approvers registered in the Approval lists on the Forms approval object before this one, to allow approvers to keep updated on forms they have approved.

If a form has only one Forms approval object, there are no Upstream Approvers. Use Notification to Peers to send e-mails to other approvers in the same Approval list / Forms approval object.

On Approval - mark the box if approvers at the previous level should be notified of approvals when a submission is fully approved
On Partial Approval - mark the box if approvers at the previous level should be notified of partial approvals at this stage; partial approval means when one approver approves a form with a Forms approval configured with Method = 'All' and more than one approver in the Approval list
On Rejection - mark the box if approvers at the previous level should be notified of rejections at this stage

Notifications to Downstream Approvers

Send an e-mail to all approvers registered in Approval lists on the Forms approval object after this one, to allow approvers to keep updated on forms they will soon receive for approval.

If a form has only one Forms approval object, there are no Downstream Approvers. Use Notification to Peers to send e-mails to other approvers in the same Approval list / Forms approval object.

On Approval - mark the box if approvers at the next level should be notified of approvals when a submission is fully approved
On Partial Approval - mark the box if approvers at the next level should be notified of partial approvals at this stage; partial approval occurs when one approver approves a form with a Forms approval configured with Method = 'All' and more than one approver in the Approval list
On Rejection - mark the box if approvers at the next level should be notified of rejections at this stage

Access control

Read accessors - click the Edit button () and authorize one or more users and user groups to view the object on Web.
Add accessors - click the Edit button() and authorize one or more users and user groups to add new objects to the object on Web.
Write accessors - click the Edit button() and authorize one or more users and user groups to edit the object on Web.
Delete accessors - click the Edit button() and authorize one or more users and user groups to delete the object on Web.
Ownership - click the Edit button () and grant ownership of the object to one or more users and user groups.

Users and user groups who own the object have full access rights to it.
Override access profile - select for the object's access control setting to outrank the object's corresponding access settings in profiles.