The Approval Process enables control of available published data by dividing the publication process into two registries:
The Publication Registry holds data that is not ready for discovery. Users who feel their data is ready to be made available can request approval to have this data promoted.
The Discovery Registry contains only approved data - users cannot publish directly to this registry, but may request approval from the publication registry.
The approval process can be found only on a publication registry. Step by step instructions apply to it and not the discovery registery. This process will not be found in standalone or similar installations.
Approval requests are messages that contain a list of registry entities. These lists can be built up to include different types. This means that when creating a request you don't need to send it immediately, but can save it under your profile and add or remove elements, or edit other properties before submitting it. This allows an entire container of records to be promoted (or demoted) in one action. Note too, that when adding a record to an approval message its child properties will automatically be added. For example, when submitting a provider, the services stored under its umbrella will be added to the request. Many of these must be promoted along with he owning record.
Approval messages that have been sent and which are awaiting approval can alwasy be found on a user's home tab. In the right most column of that tab you will find a link titled, Submitted Approval Requests. This loads the Submitted Approval Requests page where you can trigger reminder messages to the approver, or cancel the request.
From the requestor's point of view, the approval request process involves three distinct states. Approval messages containing requests are in preparation but are unsubmitted. Approval messages have been Submitted but have not yet been approved or rejected by the approver. Approval messages have been submitted and acted upon and are therfore Completed.
All approval messages created under a user account are stored under that account until deleted by the user or a registry administrator. You can find lists of requests under the Tools tab. There you will find links that will load all of your Unsubmitted, Submitted and Completed promotion approval requests.