Approve / Review a Document
Both Approving and Reviewing a document follow the same procedure.
Here, reviewing/approving a document in the documents module involves reading the document and accepting or rejecting the changes made.
The approval workflow for a document can be a two-stage process i.e. first some reviewers read the document and accept or reject it and then following all reviewers accepting the document it will then move on to the final approvers. The approvers again will read the document and approve or disapprove it.
If you are assigned as a reviewer or approver you will receive an email notification with a link to the document in the system. If a document is ever rejected during the approval process, the overall responsible person for the document will receive an email notification to let them know the document was rejected and the reason for it.
1. Find the Document to Approve / Review
There are three ways to find a document that is awaiting approval or review.
1.2. Use the My Actions Tab on Dashboard
Any document approvals that have been assigned to you will show up under the My Actions tab on the Main Dashboard. Use the column Module Name to filter actions relating to the Documents Module.
2. Review/Approve the Document
To Accept a document simply click the green "Accept" button. If you decide to reject the changes to a document, simply click the "Reject" button and you will be prompted to give a reason for the rejection.
To approve a document simply click the green Approve button. If you decide to reject or disapprove a document you will be prompted to give a reason for the rejection.
3. Document Workflow
Below is a flowchart that describes the workflow of a document and how a new version is added.
Note that if a document is Rejected or Disapproved, the state of that document will then become "Awaiting Change" and will stay in that state until a new file is added to the document and the approval process is started again.
![Document Version Workflow](https://media.screensteps.com/image_assets/assets/001/075/400/original/8b93aa14-59bc-4f91-bae6-5ed2abf243b0.png)
4. Rejected Documents
If a document is rejected at any time during the approval process, all outstanding approval actions for the document will disappear and the document will now be awaiting change by the overall responsible person. They are notified by email, on the My Actions Tab on the dashboard and an action 'Awaiting Change' will appear in the documents module action tab.
The user responsible will download the document, fix the document and send it back through the approval workflow. Refer to the section Add a New Document Version to see how this is done.
5. Document Review/Approval with 'Read Only' Access
If a User has 'Edit' access within the permissions of their Role, the User will be able to access the links to the current document version, all previously added document versions and the document version currently under review/approval on the document main page.
If a User has 'Read Only' access within the permissions of their Role, the User will be unable to access the links to all previously added document versions and the document version currently under review/approval on the document main page. The User will only be able to access to the current document version on the document main page.
However, the 'Read Only' User can still access the document version currently under review/approval using the 'Action>Edit Properties' button. Within the properties page, the 'Read Only' User will be able to download the document version currently under review/approval. Once downloaded, the User can read through the document and come back to the system to click the 'Accept/Reject' or 'Approve/Disapprove' buttons to complete their part in the Review/Approval process.
A User with 'Read Only' access will never be able to see the previously added document versions.