Defining the Approval Cycle of Documents in Document Control
Document Approval Cycles can be as simple or as complex as you would like for them to be.
In Documents > Module Settings you can configure both the Signature Settings as well the Approval Workflow in order to make sure that Documents go through a standardized Approval Cycle.
You can define exactly how many steps Documents can go through as well as determine whether it is necessary for everyone to sign off at each particular stage.
Afterward, when creating the Document Type and/or the Document itself, you add the Users responsible for each role.
Configuring Signature Settings
Go to Documents > Module Settings > Signature Settings.
You can then determine if:
- Sign off by all QA persons is required
- Sign off by all Approvers is required
- Sign off by all Reviewers is required
- Sign off by all Authors is required
For each role, the switch is OFF per default, which means that it will be sufficient with the approval of a single user in that role. If you want the signature of all Users to be required you need to turn the switch ON.
Configuring Approval Workflow
Go to Documents > Module Settings > Approval Workflow.
You can then determine if you want to:
- Activate/deactivate Reviewer step
- Activate/deactivate Approver step
- Activate/deactivate QA step
- Activating any of these steps does not make them mandatory. In other words, if, for example, the Reviewer Step has been Activated in the Approval Workflow, it does not mean that there must be someone to Review a Document, the Reviewer field can be left empty when editing a Document.
- On the other hand, if the Reviewer step has been Deactivated in the Approval Workflow, users will not be able to introduce a Reviewer when editing a Document.