Requesting approvals for status changes

You can add activate an approval workflow for a selected status. Whenever someone changes into that status, an approval workflow will start. The task status will not change into this (target) status until the approver(s) has/have given approval.

Enable an approval workflow for a status

Note: Approval can only be enabled for custom workflows and statuses.

1. Click on the Status Button in a task dialog
2. Open the dialog Edit workflows by clicking the ⚙ icon
3. Choose a custom workflow (or create a new workflow) 
4. Click on the icon in the row of the respective custom status to show the options
5. In the options, activate the switch Approval

   
   
6. If you already want to define the approver(s), you can add one or more people here. You can always select someone later during the approval request process.
   
   
   
   
7. If an approval is active for a custom status, the status will be tagged "Approval"
   

Find statuses requiring approval

• If a custom workflow is used in a task, you can see it in the status dialog's title (here: Custom Workflow)
• You can recognize a status that has to be approved by the tag Approval
• The status following a approval status will be grayed out (not selectable) until the status change is approved.

Request an approval

1. Change the status to the one to be approved, in the example above: Final check 
2. In the following dialog you can add information to your approval request
   
   1. Approval desired until Enter a date by which you expect the status change to be approved. The date has only informative character and otherwise no function.
   2. Remark Add a comment for explanation - optional.
   3. Send request for approval to If someone on your team has already been defined to be the approver in the status settings, the approval request will automatically be sent to this person. You can optionally add more people to the approval request or - if noone is selected here yet - you will have to select at least one a person.

Note:

• The approval request can only be submitted when at least one approver is selected
• If two approvers are selected, the approval request is considered granted when one of the two approvers approves the status change
• You can not select yourself as approver, this must be someone else within your team

As soon as an approval request has been submitted by hitting Submit request, the request recipients / approvers receive a notification via the 🔔 icon and can check the corresponding task:

Tasks in the "Approval pending" stage

Tasks that are in an approval workflow are marked in the task dialog with a horizontal bar at the top saying approval pending.

Expanded:

Note:
Currently only the status field is frozen for a task that is in the Approval Pending stage. The task itself can still be edited by all participants, i.e. comments can be entered or the description can be changed. This will be logged in the activity log, but will currently not be prevented. In a future release, configuring permissions for tasks will be enabled in order to e.g. lock tasks to keep them from being edited.

Possible actions

Only the requester and the recipient can continue processing the approval workflow. For all other parties involved, the status of the task will be frozen.

• Requesters can...
  
  • Cancel the approval request
  • Add a comment
    
    
• Request Recipients / Approvers can
  • Approve the request 
    • in this case the requester will receive a notification about the approved status transition
    • the task status will be set to the status that was approved
    • the approval workflow is finished
      
      
  • Decline the request
    • in this case the requester receives a notification that his approval request was declined
    • the task is reset to its original status
    • the approval workflow is finished
      
      
  • Add a comment
    • in this case the requester receives a notification about the comment
    • the task remains in the Approval Pending stage until it is either approved, declined or canceled
      
      Note: The buttons ❌ and ✅ are only visible to the approver / recipient.
      When the bar is expanded, more information becomes visible, such as who made the release request.
      
      

      

• Everyone else: All other participants can comment on a task that is in the Approval pending stage.