Setting up Approval Sharing

• 11/09/2023
• 6 minutes to read

If you're unable to approve documents for a period of time, you can have all of your approval tasks automatically forwarded to another approver during that period. You essentially share your approval tasks with a designated approver, and this approver will then act as your substitute until you're able to approve documents again yourself.

Approval sharing can be carried out for any user and any purpose (on behalf of other users than yourself) – typically done by admins – or for and by yourself if you're out of office.

Approval sharing

To set up approval sharing, follow these steps:

1. Choose the icon, enter Approval Sharing, and then choose the related link.
2. In the action bar, select Edit List to make the list editable.
3. In the Owner User ID and Shared to User ID columns, enter the user ID of the person who's sharing approval tasks – hereafter referred to as the original approver – and that of the substitute approver.
4. In the Sharing Type column, select Normal unless you specifically need to change the out-of-office settings of the original approver (a rather rare exception).

   Note

   Individual users usually set up out-of-office approval sharing themselves using the procedure described below. However, it may occasionally be necessary for an admin to do it on behalf of a user. In such cases, the admin must select Out of Office instead of Normal, and the user will then be able to edit the entry later, if necessary. If the admin selects Normal (by far the most common scenario), the user will not be able to edit the entry at a later point.

5. In the Valid From and Valid To columns, enter or select the start and end dates of the period in which approval tasks should be shared.
6. If you want the substitute approver to inherit the limits and permissions of the original approver, select the Use Owner's Limits & Permissions checkbox.
7. In the Send Email To column, specify if approval emails should be sent to the substitute approver, the original approver, or both.
8. If you want approval tasks to be shared for all companies in which both users are present, select the Copy to All Companies checkbox. If you don't select this checkbox, the approval sharing you're setting up will only apply to the company that you're currently in.

Out-of-office approval sharing for individual users

Although you can indeed set up out-of-office approval sharing using the above guide, which is particularly useful for admins setting it up for multiple users at the same time, there's a more user-friendly way to do it for each individual user, enabling you to do it yourself:

1. Choose the icon, enter Purchase Approval Entries, and then choose the related link.
2. In the action bar, select Out of Office Setup.
3. Under Forward from date and Forward to date, enter or select the start and end dates of the period in which your approval tasks should be shared.
4. Under Forward to, enter the user ID of the substitute approver to whom your approval tasks should be forwarded.
5. If you want your approval tasks to be shared for all companies in which both you and the substitute approver are present, select the Copy to All Companies checkbox. If you don't select this checkbox, the out-of-office approval sharing you're setting up will only apply to the company that you're currently in.