Approval Unit Ownership

Promoting Entities

You can only promote a parent entity when you promote its children to its level. When you promote all the child entities to have the same owner as the parent, then you can promote the parent, which will also promote all its children.

When promoting a parent entity along with its children, all entities must pass validation before any are promoted to the next level. If any entity fails validation, none will be promoted.

Taking Ownership of Entities

Unless you are the Owner or Reviewer at the same level of the entity within the promotional path, you cannot perform any approval action except to take ownership.

If you are in the promotional path above the current entity, you can take ownership to bring the entity to your level so that you can then take approval action for the entity.

If you take ownership of a parent entity, you can also take ownership of its children, if they are all at the same level.

Approval Users not in the Promotional Path

If you are not in the promotional path for an approval unit, you can view the list of entities on the Approvals page for which you have Read or Write access, but you cannot perform any approval actions for any of the entities.

No Owner

If the entity has no assigned Owner, no users can take ownership, even if they are in the promotional path above the entity. Only the Administrator can take ownership of the approval unit.

Rejecting Entities

If you reject a parent entity, all of its children are also rejected and their status changes to "Not Signed Off". They return to the previous owner in the path and have the same owner as the parent entity.

If you want to reject a parent entity but not its children, then you can select Reject Single. The parent entity will be rejected with its status changed to "Not Signed Off", and ownership will return to the previous owner, but there will be no action performed for its children. The children retain the same "Under Review" status and stay with the same Owner.

The default Owner when you reject an approval unit is "Automatic", which means that it automatically returns to the previous Owner. When you reject an approval unit, you can select a different Owner from the list of available Owners in the promotional path before you.

Originating Entities

If necessary, you can choose to have the review return to the original owner when it was first started. When you perform the Originate action, the ownership returns to the original Owner, and the status is "Under Review". The system does not clear any of the review process history. The Originate action only affects a base entity and does not affect the parent. If you originate the parent entity, it will also originate all of its children and they return to the original Owner of the promotional path.

Note:

The Originate action is different from the Exclude and Start action, which can only be performed by an Administrator. The Exclude action clears all review process history, and the Start action sets the Owner to the first Owner of the promotional path.

Approving Entities

You can only approve the entity when it reaches the end of the promotional path. When you approve an entity, its status changed to "Approved", but does not change ownership.

If you approve only a base entity, it does not affect the status of the parent entity.

If you approve a parent entity, all of its children are included as part of the review process. If any fail validation, none will be approved.

Reopening Entities

After an entity has been approved, you can either lock the entity or reopen it for review. When you reopen an entity, the status changes to "Under Review" and the ownership returns to the previous Owner in the promotional path.

The default Owner when you reopen an approval unit is "Automatic", which means that it automatically returns to the previous Owner. When you reopen an approval unit, you can select a different Owner from the list of available Owners in the promotional path before you.

Locking Entities

The final state in the approval process is "Locked". The system ensure that all prior periods are locked before locking the current period. Only the last Owner in the promotional path can change the entity from "Approved" to "Locked".

Unlocking Entities

After an entity is locked, if you need to modify additional data or review the entity, you must first unlock the entity. The system checks to ensure that all future periods are not locked prior to unlocking the current period.

If you unlock a parent entity, all children will also be unlocked as part of the process. If you want to unlock only a parent entity, you can select Unlock Single, so that the system unlocks only the selected entity.

Signing Off on Entities

The Sign Off action allows you to acknowledge that you have reviewed and are OK with the entity's data. After the Sign Off action, the status is changed to "Signed Off".

You are allowed to Sign Off and then keep possession of the approval unit, or you can Sign Off and then promote it. If you promote an entity without a Sign Off, then the system does an implicit Sign Off.