An approval workflow is a mechanism that prevents SOPs from being issued or revised unless approval is given by designated people. When you select an approval workflow and publish, the SOP will not be published until all approvers have approved.

Only available to Pro and Enterprise plan customers. Settings are configured from your web browser.

Types of approval workflows

There are two types of approval workflows: "Company-wide" which all team members can select, and "Group approval workflow" which can be selected only by people belonging to that group. Both can be created any number of times depending on use case, and you select one when publishing an SOP.

Company-wide approval workflows … Can be created by Owner or Team Administrator. All team members can select. Can be used even in teams that haven't created groups.
Group approval workflows … Can be created by Group Administrator or above for that group. Can be selected by people belonging to that group.

Creating an approval workflow

Click the person icon (User management) in the sidebar.
In the target bar at the top, select "Company-wide (team)" if creating a company-wide approval workflow, or select the target group if creating a group approval workflow.
Click "Approval workflow" in the target bar.
Click "Create", then enter a name (example: Review Registration Workflow) and description.
For each step, set the label and approver conditions (see "Designating approvers" below).
Click "Save".

You can edit, duplicate, disable, or delete the created approval workflow from the list. When disabled, the workflow remains in the list but cannot be selected when publishing.

Designating approvers

Rather than directly deciding who will approve, you set "what role/position people must have to approve". The actual approvers are determined based on who initiates the request and their affiliation and qualifications at that time.

There are 5 conditions that can be specified for each step:

Higher up as seen from the initiator … Based on the initiator's affiliation, candidates include people with target permissions from their group / one level up / two levels up / three levels up. One approval workflow can be reused across all departments.
Group administrator … People with administrative permission in a specified group become candidates. Use this when designating cross-functional departments such as safety manager or quality assurance.
Administrator within the team … Regardless of group, people with target permissions across the entire team become candidates.
A specific person … You directly name the person. This tends to stop working due to transfers or resignations, so group designation is recommended.
Holder of a qualification … People who actively hold that qualification become candidates. People whose qualifications have expired are automatically removed from candidates.

When multiple conditions are listed for one step, anyone matching any of those conditions becomes a candidate (example: direct supervisor or qualification holder). A step can be labeled such as "Direct supervisor" or "Safety manager".

The "Any admin permission" option for filtering by permission means that anyone holding any of Owner, Team Administrator, or Group Administrator permissions becomes a candidate.

Advanced settings (Type, Pass conditions, Do not wait for approval)

When you open "Advanced settings" for each step, you can set the following 3 options. If not opened, the behavior will be "approval steps arranged in sequence".

Type … "Approve" is decision, "Review" is content verification. They are recorded separately in the approval history.
Pass condition … "Pick one when raising" means the initiator names one from candidates. "Any one" means the workflow passes if any one candidate approves. "All" requires approval from all candidates, order does not matter.
Do not wait for approval … When enabled, people at that step receive only a notification and proceed to the next step without waiting for approval. Can only be set when type is "Review".

Checking who it goes to

Because approvers are designated by position, actual approvers change depending on who initiates. In the edit screen, clicking "Check who it goes to" and temporarily selecting an initiator will display the approvers for that case. Your selection here does not affect saved content.

If there is a step that cannot be resolved, that initiator cannot begin the request. For example, if a person belonging to the top-level group goes through a step for "one level up group administrator", there is no higher group, so no approver is determined.

Setting a default approval workflow

At the top of the approval workflow list screen, you can select "Company-wide default" or "Default for this group". An approval workflow set as default will be pre-selected when publishing an SOP. The initiator can also change it.

Linking with revision reasons

You can register "revision reasons" to select when publishing and link approval workflows to each reason. When linked, the corresponding approval workflow is automatically selected when that reason is chosen.

On the approval workflow list screen, open "Revision reason".
Set the name of the reason (example: Changes related to allergens, Correction of typos) and the corresponding approval workflow.
As needed, set which reason is pre-selected "When publishing for the first time" and "From the second time onward (revisions)".

If you set a reason linked to an approval workflow without approval (a workflow with no steps) as default, it will publish without going through approval with the default setting. Please be careful when configuring.

Requesting approval

In the SOP edit screen, when you click "Publish", a screen to select an approval workflow is displayed.

Select a revision reason (if configured).
Select an approval workflow. Company-wide and group approval workflows appear in one list.
If you belong to multiple groups, select "Which affiliation should it be based on?". Approvers such as "direct supervisor" are determined based on the affiliation you select here.
For steps with "Pick one when raising", designate the approver from among candidates. If there is only one candidate, or for steps with "Any one" or "All", designation is not required.
Click "Request approval".

If there is a step where no approver can be determined, you cannot start the request as is. Either select a different approval workflow or ask an administrator to review settings. If an approver cannot access the folder where the SOP is stored, this will be indicated. The request will be delivered and the current content can be reviewed, but the SOP cannot be opened after publication.

Once the request is initiated, the current approvers and step details are retained on the request side. Even if you later edit the approval workflow, already-initiated requests are not affected.

Approving or rejecting

Approvers receive email notification. From "Drafts / Approvals", open the target SOP, review the content, and either approve or reject (send back).

When rejecting, select where the initiator should restart after making corrections. The default is "Start over from the beginning". If you select "Restart from my step", it restarts from the step where you sent it back. Use this when content changes are minor, such as correcting typos. The Owner's settings can prohibit this choice.

For re-editing an SOP that has been rejected, please refer to How to re-edit an SOP rejected by approval workflow.

Withdrawing a request

The person who initiated the request can withdraw it during the approval process. At the top of the SOP, click "Withdraw" next to the "In approval flow" indicator, and the SOP returns to draft where you can edit and resubmit as is. Use this when an approver has resigned or been disabled and approval is not progressing.

Only the person who made the request can withdraw it. A record of withdrawal remains in the revision history.

Setting approval rules (Owner)

The contents of the approval workflow (who approves) are set from User management, and the Owner sets what to approve. In the "Security" tab under Security Settings, you can configure the following 6 options:

Approvers whose qualifications are conditions check expiration dates at the time of approval as well (default: on)
Allow the initiator to also be an approver (default: off)
Allow publishing without approval (default: off)
Allow building an approval workflow on the spot when publishing (default: off)
Allow restarting from the step of the person who rejected after a rejection (default: on)
Require choosing a revision reason when publishing (default: off)