Users and permissions

Approval routes

Decide who approves offers, awards, gates, budget increases, submittal reviews and purchase orders, in which order, when a step applies, and when a waiting request is escalated.

Where to find itProjectsApproval Routes

2 min readLast updated

An approval route says who approves a kind of record, step by step. Routes cover offers, awards, the Go / No-Go, baseline and long-lead gates, budget increases, submittal reviews and purchase orders. HR requests (leave, loans, expenses, permissions) keep their routes in HR.

Installing a process pack in Process settings creates a starting set of routes; you can change them here.

Create or change a route

  1. Go to Projects > Approval Routes and select New route, or open a route.

  2. Choose the Record type.

  3. Under Route applies when, add the conditions that pick this route, for example an order total above 25,000. Any one condition is enough. With no condition, the route applies to every record of that type. When several routes apply, the one with the highest Priority wins.

  4. Add the steps in order. For each step choose the Approver:

    • Approval role: anyone holding the role, for example General Manager. See Approval roles.

    • Project team role: the person with that role on the record's own project, for example its project manager.

    • Specific user, or Anyone with permission.

  5. Save.

A route that is in use by a waiting request cannot have its steps changed until that request is decided.

Step options

  • Only when: the step applies only if all its conditions hold; otherwise it is skipped. For example, the Partner step of an offer route applies only when the margin is below the target margin.

  • Everyone must approve: with a role, every holder must approve (each once), not just one of them.

  • Remind after (hours): the approvers are reminded once if the request is still waiting.

  • Escalate after (hours) and Escalate to: after that time, holders of the escalation role are told and can decide the request too.

Test a route

In Test a route, enter an amount or a margin to see which route a record would take and which steps would apply.

Common questions

Who decides a step nobody holds? Nobody: a role step waits until someone is given the role. Fill the roles before relying on a route.

Can a delegate approve? Yes. A delegation can be limited to some record types or to an amount.

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