The following instructions apply for Projects that have approval activated, such as the ISO 27001 Policies and Controls Project. See here for a guide on how to activate Project approval.
All users – Submitting an Activity for approval
Any users of a Project are able to submit an Activity for approval. To submit an Activity for approval, go to the Project structure, by clicking on the ‘Structure’ tab within a Project. Click on the Activity that you would like to approve.
On the left-hand panel, a ‘Submit for approval’ button will appear for all unapproved Activities, where approval is enabled. Clicking this will change the status of the Activity to ‘Awaiting approval’. This will notify those within the Project with approval rights that the Activity is awaiting approval.
Approvers – Approving or Declining an Activity
Only those with approval rights can approve and decline activities. See here for a guide on how to grant users approval rights
Once an Activity has been submitted for approval. The ability to ‘Decline’ or ‘Approve’ appears at the top of the Activity for users of the Project that have approval rights.
Clicking the ‘Decline’ button will decline the Activity. You can include a comment explaining why you’re declining the activity. Your comments will be added as a Discussion in the Activity and the assignee will be notified. This will set to the Activity to ‘Open’ status.
Clicking the ‘Approve’ button will approve the Activity. Once an Activity has been approved, you will be prompted to set a reminder to review this Activity in the future. Simply choose a date and click ‘Create reminder’ and this will create a task for the user the activity is assigned to.
Once approved you will see both who submitted the activity and who approved it, along with the date and time those actions were taken.
Once an Activity has been approved, it can be reopened. This can be done by clicking on the ‘Reopen Activity’ button.
Reopening an Activity will set the status to ‘Open’, meaning that it can be once again submitted for approval.
Viewing Activities that have been submitted for Approval
There are multiple areas within ISMS.online where you can view Activities that have been submitted for Approval.
On the Project Approval tab
This can be accessed by clicking on the 'Approval' tab within a Project. The 'Activities requiring approval' section will list the activities within this Project that are awaiting approval.
You can use the buttons to Approve or Decline Activities, or you can select multiple Activities using the checkboxes and 'Decline selected'/'Approve selected' buttons.
On the Project Structure tab - Project Outline
Within the Project structure, Activities that are awaiting Approval will have an orange 'A' symbol. This can be accessed by clicking on the 'Structure' tab within a Project and ensuring that the 'Outline' view is applied.
On the Project Structure tab - Project Progress
You can filter Activities by those that are awaiting approval within this page.
This can be accessed by:
- Clicking on the 'Structure' tab within a Project and ensuring that the 'Progress' view is applied
- Clicking on the 'Status' dropdown list and selecting 'Awaiting approval'
- Clicking 'Filter'
On the to-do list
You can view all of the Activities within your To-do list that have the status 'Awaiting approval'.
This can be accessed by:
- Hovering over 'Work' in the navigation bar
- Clicking 'To-do list'
- Clicking on 'Status' to sort Activities
- Observe the Activities that have the status 'Awaiting approval'
