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Elements Of An Approval Process

In order to answer your planning questions, you need to understand the various elements that contribute to an approval process.

Approval processes

An approval process is made up of approval steps. Each approval step is linked to another from start to finish, culminating in a single final step.

In an approval process diagram, each approval step appears as a box attached to other boxes to represent the flow of the process from beginning to end. A visual indicator or clue related to each approval step box specifies its state of completion.

Approval steps

Each approval step represents a non-overlapping area of data in the database, known as a Data Area.

Appearance

In the Longview Workflow Designer, all approval steps appear as a box. A Hierarchical approval step is designated with an additional icon below the step box.

Types of approval steps

The method you choose to create approval steps is driven by your company’s own processes (for example, business process order in your planning process or month end consolidation process). Each approval process has its own diagram of approval steps.

The behavior of the step depends on the type of step:

Step Type Description
Simple approval step
  • Represents one Data Area
Hierarchical approval step
  • Represents Data Areas that exactly mimic part or all of the hierarchy of one dimension (often ENTITIES) called the Approval dimension
  • Composed of sub-steps called approval areas
  • The Owner and Approver of the root step is assigned at creation. Users with Write access to symbols in approval areas are implied Owners. The Owner of any parent is the Approver of the symbols below it in the hierarchy.
  • Read-only global overlay access is ignored when it comes to determining implied Owners and Approvers of approval areas within Hierarchical approval steps. The fact that the user has Read-only access to a symbol because of global overlay does not prevent him or her from being deemed an Owner or Approver of an approval area that includes that symbol.
Final step
  • Paradoxically, the first step to be created in Longview Workflow Designer, but the last to be approved
  • Called “Final step” because it is the last step to be approved, after all other submissions and approvals, signifying the completion of the approval process
  • Appears at the top of the process diagram
  • Can be either Simple or Hierarchical

Selecting an approval step type

To determine the correct type of approval step for a particular approval process, follow these guidelines:

  • If you need to establish a chain of command specifically for this approval process, use Simple approval steps.
  • If the chain of command for the approval is identical to one of the dimensions in your application database (usually the ENTITIES dimension), use a Hierarchical approval step.
  • If the chain of command is similar to, but not identical to, a dimension in your database, you cannot use a Hierarchical approval step only. Use a combination of simple and hierarchical steps to achieve your process. For example, use a Simple approval step at a higher level, and try to use a subhierarchy as a Hierarchical approval step below it.

In some organizations, the approval process may consist of only one approval step (likely a Hierarchical step). For example, your company may be interested in tracking submissions and approvals for one set of accounts only (for example, Net Income and its descendants), with a chain of command that is exactly represented by its Entities hierarchy (multiple levels of approval as represented by each approval area).

Caution: If a System administrator uses Longview Application Administrator to perform entity maintenance, a Hierarchical approval step in Longview Workflow using those entities may be affected. Use with caution.

Approval roles

Depending on the responsibilities of the people in your company, they can interact with the approval process in different ways. To perform these tasks, users can fill one or more of the following roles:

Role Tasks
Administrator Uses Longview Workflow Designer to:
  • define approval processes
  • determine Owners and Approvers for approval steps
  • globally reset statuses to starting point
  • activate, deactivate, update, or modify approval processes
Owner For the Data Area defined in the approval step, uses Longview Workflow on the web to:
  • view and change status of the Data Area defined in the approval step
  • change status from Not Started or Rejected to In Progress
  • change status from Not Started, Rejected or In Progress to Submitted for Approval
  • set visibility while status is Not Started, Rejected, or In Progress (if the approval system is configured to allow changes to visibility)
Approver For the Data Area defined in the approval step, uses Longview Workflow on the web to:
  • change status to In Progress or Submitted for Approval as backup to Owner
  • change status from Not Started, Rejected, or In Progress to Approved
  • change status from Submitted for Approval to Approved, Rejected, or In Progress
  • set visibility while status is Not Started, In Progress, or Rejected (if the approval system is configured to allow changes to visibility)
Viewer If the viewer has Read access to at least one coordinate in a workflow process, the viewer uses Longview Workflow on the web to:
  • view the status of some Data Areas, but
  • cannot change status

Every approval step must have an Owner and an Approver.

  • The Owner is the person who submits data for approval. He or she may sometimes also input data.
  • The Approver is the person who approves the submitted data for a particular Data Area.
  • A person can be both an Owner and an Approver, as he or she approves submissions from the level below and submits that data to the next Approver in the chain.

In some cases, you need to assign the Owner and Approver roles manually to each step. In other situations, the Longview Workflow Designer software does it automatically.

Situation Responsibility type Description
Simple approval step Assigned Owner and Approver Assigned at creation
Top level of Hierarchical approval step Assigned Owner and Approver Assigned at creation
All other areas of Hierarchical approval step Implicit Owner Users with Write access to all cells in the approval area
All other areas of Hierarchical approval step Implicit Approver Owner of parent approval area
Simple approval step Implicit Owner Users with full access to all entities

You may need to use Longview Application Administrator to set symbol access to parent entities as Write access, 0 levels below the parent symbol for managers (in addition to usual Read access, 99 levels below the parent symbol). A user who has 99 levels of Write access below a given parent in the Approval dimension is the Owner of that parent as well as being both Owner and Approver of each approval area below that parent, becoming, in effect, a super-user who can submit and then approve any descendant area.

Special behaviors for lowest approval areas

When the Approval dimension does not cover the entire symbol hierarchy below a parent (for example, a parent entity with two levels down), the lowest approval area in each branch actually covers all symbols below it (if any) so that all data in the entire branch receives a status.

However, contrary to usual Data Area ownership rules, for purposes of ownership of this lowest approval level, Write access only to the top symbol in the branch is required. There is no need for 99 levels of access.

Data Areas

Longview Workflow Designer is used by a System administrator to create an approval process, which consists of approval steps. Each approval step represents a non-overlapping area of data in the database, known as a Data Area.

Once an approval process is activated by the System administrator, users who are Owners or Approvers of specific Data Areas go to a web page in order to set the status of their areas. Some users can view the Data Areas on the web, based on their Read symbol access rights, but cannot change any status.

The areas covered by the various approval steps and Data Areas in a system are not allowed to overlap. Any Data Area created cannot overlap any other Data Area, whether in the current approval process, or any other activated or deactivated approval process (each database cell can only be included in one Data Area).

Approval status

After you, as System administrator, have created and activated the approval process in which Chain of command is enabled, the users in your company use Longview Workflow on the web to request data approval, and to approve or reject submitted data.

The status of an approval step can change in several ways:

Originator of status change Method
Longview Workflow system

Mandatory starting status of Not Started

Automated change to In Progress from Not Started when first changed value to at least one cell in a Data Area is uploaded

Owner of the Data Area Using Longview Workflow on the web
Approver of the Data Area Using Longview Workflow on the web
System administrator Using Longview Workflow Designer for correction and override purposes

There are several approval statuses, including the following:

Not Started

The status of each approval process begins with Not Started. As soon as a changed value is uploaded to any cell within a Data Area, the servers automatically change the status of that Data Area to In Progress.

Under normal circumstances, a started approval process would never need to go back to Not Started status. However, if necessary, the System administrator can do so, using the reset functionality in Longview Workflow Designer.

Status Description
Who sets it?
  • System (mandatory starting status)
  • System administrator (reset)
Editing of data allowed? yes
Cascading of status none
Prerequisite Status N/A

In Progress

When a process is In Progress, the Data Area is editable, and the Owner of the Data Area can change its status, visibility, and data values. The In Progress status is set manually by the Owner or Approver of a Data Area, or automatically by the system, as described in Not started.

Once an Owner has changed status to Submitted for Approval, the Owner of a Data Area cannot set it back to In Progress. The Approver of the step is allowed to set the step back to In Progress as long as the step has not already been Approved.

In the case of approval areas within a Hierarchical approval step, only the Approver of an approval area (the Owner of the approval area above) can set it back to In Progress and can do so if their own approval area (the parent area) is itself still In Progress. If the parent approval area is Submitted for Approval or Approved, its Owner cannot change its status or the status of the areas immediately below it.

Status Description
Who sets it?
  • System
  • Owner
  • Approver
  • System administrator
Editing of data allowed? yes
Cascading of status none
Prerequisite Status none

Submitted for Approval

The Submitted for Approval status occurs when an Owner of a Data Area confirms that his or her Data Area is ready to be reviewed. Once a Data Area is Submitted for Approval, no one can edit the data contained in it, and its Owner can no longer change any of its parameters. If invisibility is enabled, a Data Area that is Submitted for Approval is also automatically made Visible to all users with proper symbol access.

For a Hierarchical approval step, an approval area can only be set to Submitted for Approval if all the approval areas below it are Approved. For a Simple step, any prior steps must be Approved.

The Submitted for Approval status is normally set by the Owner of a Data Area. However, if the Owner happens to be unavailable, the Approver can also set this status. Owners or Approvers of subsequent steps, or of higher-level parent approval areas within a Hierarchical approval step, cannot force the submission and approval of previous lower Data Areas.

Status Description
Who sets it?
  • Owner
  • Approver
  • System administrator
Editing of data no
Cascading of status None
Prerequisite Status
  • Not Started
  • In Progress
  • Rejected

Rejected

The Rejected status exhibits the same behaviors as In Progress but is used if the Approver wants to convey in stronger language that the data Submitted for Approval by the Owner was not acceptable and requires re-work.

Status Description
Who sets it?
  • Approver
  • System administrator
Editing of data allowed?

yes
Cascading of status none
Prerequisite Status
  • Submitted for Approval
  • Approved

Approved

Only the Approver of an area can set the status to Approved. As with areas that are Submitted for Approval, no one can edit the data contained in it, and its Approver can no longer change any of its parameters.

A Data Area can only be Approved if it has reached a Submitted for Approval status.

Once an approval step is Approved, only the System administrator can change its status (using the reset functionality in Longview Workflow Designer) and would have to consider the consequences and impact of doing so on all users, especially those who are Owners or Approvers of steps subsequent to the one being overridden.

Within a Hierarchical approval step, once a higher-level approval area is Approved, that approval is cascaded down and recorded in all lower-level approval areas.

Field Description
Who sets it?
  • Approver
  • System administrator
Editing of data allowed? no
Cascading of status yes (within Hierarchical approval step only)
Prerequisite Status
  • Not Started
  • In Progress
  • Submitted for Approval
  • Rejected

In some cases, Owners of parent approval areas located at higher levels of the approval tree (within a hierarchical step) may have been given the ability to fully approve a whole branch, regardless of the status of the areas below, by overriding the usual chain of command.

For more information, see Creating an approval process with a Simple final step.

Associated report templates

If you want, you can associate a Longview Analysis and Reporting report template (.rtp) to each step of an approval process in order to facilitate the viewing of approval data from the web. You can associate one report template per step.

For example, you may want to create a report template containing the current numbers along with previous numbers, to produce a variance for comparison and approval purposes.

If a report template is assigned to an approval step, a link to open it appears beside the step on a web page.

It is the responsibility of the creator of the report to include the appropriate symbols and functionality in the template. If the template creator wants the Approval dimension symbol to appear automatically in the related template, he or she must leave the symbol selection for this dimension blank in the template. Then, when the user works in Longview Workflow on the web, as the user selects the step name, the template opens with the selected step. (This is applicable only to hierarchical steps.)

In some cases, the template may include, for information and calculation purposes, extra symbols that are not part of the Data Area. In such cases, the System administrator is expected to inform the users (via instructions or template formatting) that the extra information is not part of the Data Area whose status is determined.

Published:

Elements Of An Approval Process

In order to answer your planning questions, you need to understand the various elements that contribute to an approval process.

Approval processes

An approval process is made up of approval steps. Each approval step is linked to another from start to finish, culminating in a single final step.

In an approval process diagram, each approval step appears as a box attached to other boxes to represent the flow of the process from beginning to end. A visual indicator or clue related to each approval step box specifies its state of completion.

Approval steps

Each approval step represents a non-overlapping area of data in the database, known as a Data Area.

Appearance

In the Longview Workflow Designer, all approval steps appear as a box. A Hierarchical approval step is designated with an additional icon below the step box.

Types of approval steps

The method you choose to create approval steps is driven by your company’s own processes (for example, business process order in your planning process or month end consolidation process). Each approval process has its own diagram of approval steps.

The behavior of the step depends on the type of step:

Step Type Description
Simple approval step
  • Represents one Data Area
Hierarchical approval step
  • Represents Data Areas that exactly mimic part or all of the hierarchy of one dimension (often ENTITIES) called the Approval dimension
  • Composed of sub-steps called approval areas
  • The Owner and Approver of the root step is assigned at creation. Users with Write access to symbols in approval areas are implied Owners. The Owner of any parent is the Approver of the symbols below it in the hierarchy.
  • Read-only global overlay access is ignored when it comes to determining implied Owners and Approvers of approval areas within Hierarchical approval steps. The fact that the user has Read-only access to a symbol because of global overlay does not prevent him or her from being deemed an Owner or Approver of an approval area that includes that symbol.
Final step
  • Paradoxically, the first step to be created in Longview Workflow Designer, but the last to be approved
  • Called “Final step” because it is the last step to be approved, after all other submissions and approvals, signifying the completion of the approval process
  • Appears at the top of the process diagram
  • Can be either Simple or Hierarchical

Selecting an approval step type

To determine the correct type of approval step for a particular approval process, follow these guidelines:

  • If you need to establish a chain of command specifically for this approval process, use Simple approval steps.
  • If the chain of command for the approval is identical to one of the dimensions in your application database (usually the ENTITIES dimension), use a Hierarchical approval step.
  • If the chain of command is similar to, but not identical to, a dimension in your database, you cannot use a Hierarchical approval step only. Use a combination of simple and hierarchical steps to achieve your process. For example, use a Simple approval step at a higher level, and try to use a subhierarchy as a Hierarchical approval step below it.

In some organizations, the approval process may consist of only one approval step (likely a Hierarchical step). For example, your company may be interested in tracking submissions and approvals for one set of accounts only (for example, Net Income and its descendants), with a chain of command that is exactly represented by its Entities hierarchy (multiple levels of approval as represented by each approval area).

Caution: If a System administrator uses Longview Application Administrator to perform entity maintenance, a Hierarchical approval step in Longview Workflow using those entities may be affected. Use with caution.

Approval roles

Depending on the responsibilities of the people in your company, they can interact with the approval process in different ways. To perform these tasks, users can fill one or more of the following roles:

Role Tasks
Administrator Uses Longview Workflow Designer to:
  • define approval processes
  • determine Owners and Approvers for approval steps
  • globally reset statuses to starting point
  • activate, deactivate, update, or modify approval processes
Owner For the Data Area defined in the approval step, uses Longview Workflow on the web to:
  • view and change status of the Data Area defined in the approval step
  • change status from Not Started or Rejected to In Progress
  • change status from Not Started, Rejected or In Progress to Submitted for Approval
  • set visibility while status is Not Started, Rejected, or In Progress (if the approval system is configured to allow changes to visibility)
Approver For the Data Area defined in the approval step, uses Longview Workflow on the web to:
  • change status to In Progress or Submitted for Approval as backup to Owner
  • change status from Not Started, Rejected, or In Progress to Approved
  • change status from Submitted for Approval to Approved, Rejected, or In Progress
  • set visibility while status is Not Started, In Progress, or Rejected (if the approval system is configured to allow changes to visibility)
Viewer If the viewer has Read access to at least one coordinate in a workflow process, the viewer uses Longview Workflow on the web to:
  • view the status of some Data Areas, but
  • cannot change status

Every approval step must have an Owner and an Approver.

  • The Owner is the person who submits data for approval. He or she may sometimes also input data.
  • The Approver is the person who approves the submitted data for a particular Data Area.
  • A person can be both an Owner and an Approver, as he or she approves submissions from the level below and submits that data to the next Approver in the chain.

In some cases, you need to assign the Owner and Approver roles manually to each step. In other situations, the Longview Workflow Designer software does it automatically.

Situation Responsibility type Description
Simple approval step Assigned Owner and Approver Assigned at creation
Top level of Hierarchical approval step Assigned Owner and Approver Assigned at creation
All other areas of Hierarchical approval step Implicit Owner Users with Write access to all cells in the approval area
All other areas of Hierarchical approval step Implicit Approver Owner of parent approval area
Simple approval step Implicit Owner Users with full access to all entities

You may need to use Longview Application Administrator to set symbol access to parent entities as Write access, 0 levels below the parent symbol for managers (in addition to usual Read access, 99 levels below the parent symbol). A user who has 99 levels of Write access below a given parent in the Approval dimension is the Owner of that parent as well as being both Owner and Approver of each approval area below that parent, becoming, in effect, a super-user who can submit and then approve any descendant area.

Special behaviors for lowest approval areas

When the Approval dimension does not cover the entire symbol hierarchy below a parent (for example, a parent entity with two levels down), the lowest approval area in each branch actually covers all symbols below it (if any) so that all data in the entire branch receives a status.

However, contrary to usual Data Area ownership rules, for purposes of ownership of this lowest approval level, Write access only to the top symbol in the branch is required. There is no need for 99 levels of access.

Data Areas

Longview Workflow Designer is used by a System administrator to create an approval process, which consists of approval steps. Each approval step represents a non-overlapping area of data in the database, known as a Data Area.

Once an approval process is activated by the System administrator, users who are Owners or Approvers of specific Data Areas go to a web page in order to set the status of their areas. Some users can view the Data Areas on the web, based on their Read symbol access rights, but cannot change any status.

The areas covered by the various approval steps and Data Areas in a system are not allowed to overlap. Any Data Area created cannot overlap any other Data Area, whether in the current approval process, or any other activated or deactivated approval process (each database cell can only be included in one Data Area).

Approval status

After you, as System administrator, have created and activated the approval process in which Chain of command is enabled, the users in your company use Longview Workflow on the web to request data approval, and to approve or reject submitted data.

The status of an approval step can change in several ways:

Originator of status change Method
Longview Workflow system

Mandatory starting status of Not Started

Automated change to In Progress from Not Started when first changed value to at least one cell in a Data Area is uploaded

Owner of the Data Area Using Longview Workflow on the web
Approver of the Data Area Using Longview Workflow on the web
System administrator Using Longview Workflow Designer for correction and override purposes

There are several approval statuses, including the following:

Not Started

The status of each approval process begins with Not Started. As soon as a changed value is uploaded to any cell within a Data Area, the servers automatically change the status of that Data Area to In Progress.

Under normal circumstances, a started approval process would never need to go back to Not Started status. However, if necessary, the System administrator can do so, using the reset functionality in Longview Workflow Designer.

Status Description
Who sets it?
  • System (mandatory starting status)
  • System administrator (reset)
Editing of data allowed? yes
Cascading of status none
Prerequisite Status N/A

In Progress

When a process is In Progress, the Data Area is editable, and the Owner of the Data Area can change its status, visibility, and data values. The In Progress status is set manually by the Owner or Approver of a Data Area, or automatically by the system, as described in Not started.

Once an Owner has changed status to Submitted for Approval, the Owner of a Data Area cannot set it back to In Progress. The Approver of the step is allowed to set the step back to In Progress as long as the step has not already been Approved.

In the case of approval areas within a Hierarchical approval step, only the Approver of an approval area (the Owner of the approval area above) can set it back to In Progress and can do so if their own approval area (the parent area) is itself still In Progress. If the parent approval area is Submitted for Approval or Approved, its Owner cannot change its status or the status of the areas immediately below it.

Status Description
Who sets it?
  • System
  • Owner
  • Approver
  • System administrator
Editing of data allowed? yes
Cascading of status none
Prerequisite Status none

Submitted for Approval

The Submitted for Approval status occurs when an Owner of a Data Area confirms that his or her Data Area is ready to be reviewed. Once a Data Area is Submitted for Approval, no one can edit the data contained in it, and its Owner can no longer change any of its parameters. If invisibility is enabled, a Data Area that is Submitted for Approval is also automatically made Visible to all users with proper symbol access.

For a Hierarchical approval step, an approval area can only be set to Submitted for Approval if all the approval areas below it are Approved. For a Simple step, any prior steps must be Approved.

The Submitted for Approval status is normally set by the Owner of a Data Area. However, if the Owner happens to be unavailable, the Approver can also set this status. Owners or Approvers of subsequent steps, or of higher-level parent approval areas within a Hierarchical approval step, cannot force the submission and approval of previous lower Data Areas.

Status Description
Who sets it?
  • Owner
  • Approver
  • System administrator
Editing of data no
Cascading of status None
Prerequisite Status
  • Not Started
  • In Progress
  • Rejected

Rejected

The Rejected status exhibits the same behaviors as In Progress but is used if the Approver wants to convey in stronger language that the data Submitted for Approval by the Owner was not acceptable and requires re-work.

Status Description
Who sets it?
  • Approver
  • System administrator
Editing of data allowed?

yes
Cascading of status none
Prerequisite Status
  • Submitted for Approval
  • Approved

Approved

Only the Approver of an area can set the status to Approved. As with areas that are Submitted for Approval, no one can edit the data contained in it, and its Approver can no longer change any of its parameters.

A Data Area can only be Approved if it has reached a Submitted for Approval status.

Once an approval step is Approved, only the System administrator can change its status (using the reset functionality in Longview Workflow Designer) and would have to consider the consequences and impact of doing so on all users, especially those who are Owners or Approvers of steps subsequent to the one being overridden.

Within a Hierarchical approval step, once a higher-level approval area is Approved, that approval is cascaded down and recorded in all lower-level approval areas.

Field Description
Who sets it?
  • Approver
  • System administrator
Editing of data allowed? no
Cascading of status yes (within Hierarchical approval step only)
Prerequisite Status
  • Not Started
  • In Progress
  • Submitted for Approval
  • Rejected

In some cases, Owners of parent approval areas located at higher levels of the approval tree (within a hierarchical step) may have been given the ability to fully approve a whole branch, regardless of the status of the areas below, by overriding the usual chain of command.

For more information, see Creating an approval process with a Simple final step.

Associated report templates

If you want, you can associate a Longview Analysis and Reporting report template (.rtp) to each step of an approval process in order to facilitate the viewing of approval data from the web. You can associate one report template per step.

For example, you may want to create a report template containing the current numbers along with previous numbers, to produce a variance for comparison and approval purposes.

If a report template is assigned to an approval step, a link to open it appears beside the step on a web page.

It is the responsibility of the creator of the report to include the appropriate symbols and functionality in the template. If the template creator wants the Approval dimension symbol to appear automatically in the related template, he or she must leave the symbol selection for this dimension blank in the template. Then, when the user works in Longview Workflow on the web, as the user selects the step name, the template opens with the selected step. (This is applicable only to hierarchical steps.)

In some cases, the template may include, for information and calculation purposes, extra symbols that are not part of the Data Area. In such cases, the System administrator is expected to inform the users (via instructions or template formatting) that the extra information is not part of the Data Area whose status is determined.

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