Once a draft document has been reviewed (optional), the next step of the Document Lifecycle is to approve the document.

When drafting a document, authors must select at least one Quality User as an Approver. Additional non-quality users can be added as "Other approvers." These approvers are selected in the document's properties.

There are two ways document authors can send a document for approval.

All listed approvers will be notified by email or via the in-app notification menu (based on your notification settings) that a document is ready for approval. It will be listed on their Dashboard under the “Your Actions” section. Alternatively, approvers can browse for the document from the Document Workspace by selecting “Your Actions” and “For approval.” Click on the document to open and view the document.

When viewing the document, approvers can view comments left during the review phase but cannot add comments.

Like reviewing a document, approvers can benefit from a “Review Checklist” documented in their Document Control policy. We’ve provided a checklist to help get you started here.

Once approvers have read through the document and all comments, they can choose to approve or decline the document by clicking the respective button in the upper right corner of the document. To complete the approval or decline process, they will enter their digital signature credentials with the option to leave a comment.

Any comments left by approvers when approving a document can be viewed in the Properties panel on the right side of the document. All Approvers and any comments made will be displayed in the Approvals section.

Once approved, the document owner will receive an email notification and/or an in-app notification (based on your notification settings) of the approval. If multiple approvers are listed, the document owner will be notified once the last approver has approved.

If an approver declines the approval, the document owner will be notified by email and/or an in-app notification (based on your notification settings) and will need to revert the document to draft, make edits to the document, then resend for review and/or approval as described in the Review a Document article.

Approvers can be adjusted when a document is in the For Approval or For Review status without reverting the document to a Draft. Quality users will see an option in the document properties to Manage approvers while in either state. This option will allow you to add, remove, or replace approvers (Quality and Other).

Select one or more approvers to add additional approvers, or unselect approvers to remove them. If removing or replacing a current approver, a required field will appear to document a reason for removal/replacement. This comment will be captured in the audit trail.

Once a document has been approved by all listed approvers, the next step is subjective to your process and templates. Based on the document’s settings, found in the Properties panel, the document may be made effective immediately upon approval. This would be common for documents that don’t require training. If however, users will need to complete training prior to making the document Effective, then use the button below to learn more about training users on the new document.

Alternatively, if the new document must be manually made effective, click the button below for more information. Documents must be made effective before appearing in the Document Library.