Managing Reviews and Approvals

This chapter provides an overview of review and approval processes and discusses how to:

Conduct reviews.
Approve documents.
Resolve approval transactions in error.

Understanding Review and Approval Processes

This section lists prerequisites and discusses:

Review and approval process options.
Document statuses during review and approval.
Initiation and completion of the approval process.
User actions during the approval process.

Prerequisite

You must enable the review and approval notifications on the General Settings page for ePerformance for this process to work correctly.

Note. The Alternate Role User feature is not available in ePerformance.

Review and Approval Process Options

When you set up the document template, you select a review and approval process option and designate the roles that need to approve the document. The approval process controls when documents require approval and whether or not an employee review is required.

Review and approval processes are designed to:

Notify employees and managers of status changes when a review is required.
Automatically route documents from one designated approver to another in the approval chain, and notify each approver by email when it is his or her turn to approve a document.
Manage workflow; that is, the order in which the review and approval steps are performed.

The review and approval process options are:

Approval Before EE Review Held

The document is approved before the manager discusses it with the employee.
Approval After EE Review Held

The approval process is initiated after the manager has reviewed the document with the employee and the employee or the manager acknowledges the document.
Approval, No EE Review Held

The manager does not need to review the document with the employee, but approval is required.
No Approval, EE Review Held

The manager must review the document with the employee, but the document does not need approval.
No Approval, No EE Review Held

The manager does not review the document with the employee, and the document does not need approval.

Approval Process Participants

The persons that must approve a document are determined by the approval rule set option that you select when creating the document template definition. You can have documents approved by:

The manager's manager and the ePerformance human resources (HR) administrator.
The ePerformance HR administrator only.

Document Statuses during Review and Approval

Employee reviews and management approvals are not required in all cases. If they are required, the manager's evaluation is the one that is reviewed and approved, and the status of this document reflects the review and approval status.

The manager's evaluation is the final document in the performance process and becomes the document used to communicate the employee's performance. A manager can consolidate other evaluator comments and ratings into the final document by using writing tools and average ratings. In addition, the manager document is the one that other applications such as Salary Planning and Competency Management use for official purposes. Therefore, it is the document that goes through the approval process.

Status codes provide a way of identifying the stages that an document moves through during the review and approval process cycle. Status codes also control when users can view or edit document data, what actions they can perform, and what page controls are available to them.

The statuses through which consolidated documents must pass and the sequence of these statuses are determined by the approval process option that is defined on the template. These statuses are:

In Progress

This is the status of an evaluation when it is first created. While the status is In Progress, the employee and manager can modify all sections of their respective evaluations that the template definition permits. The evaluations stay in this status until the manager finishes the document and clicks one of the Available for Review, Complete, or Submit for Approval buttons. The exact buttons that appear depend on the setup and approval process that is required.
Available for Review

A manager can mark an evaluation as Available for Review only when the current status of the evaluation is In Progress and one of the following two conditions are met:
- The review process is either Approval Required After Review Held or No Approval - Review Held.
- The review process is Approval Required Before Review Held and the approval status is set to Approved.
  
  To change the status of an evaluation to Available for Review, the manager must click the Available for Review button. This enables the employee to view the consolidated document and add comments to the Employee Comments section. While the document is in Available for Review status, the manager can only edit the Manager Comments section.
  
  While the consolidated document is available for review, the Review Held button appears on the document. This button enables the manager to change the status of the document to Review Held and indicates that the manager has met with the employee to review the consolidated document.
Review Held

This status indicates that the manager has discussed the consolidated document with the employee. While a document has the status of Review Held, the employee and the manager have read-only access to the document, except to enter or edit the Manager Comments or Employee Comments sections of a document, if these sections exist.
Acknowledged

This status indicates that the employee or the manager has acknowledged the document. When this status is in effect, the Employee Comments and Manager Comments sections both managers and employees have read-only access to the document. When a document is in this status, only the HR administrator can change the status back to In Progress.
Complete

This status indicates that the evaluation process is finished. No further changes to the document are permitted. With this status, employees and managers have read-only access to the document and are unable to edit or modify the content. The manager, however, can click the Rework button on an employee or other participant evaluation to return the document to the employee for revision. When the manager returns a document, the system changes the document back to In Progress and makes the Complete button available again.

The employee clicks the Complete button to change the status of the document back from In Progress to Complete. This button becomes available when the document is first created or sent back for revision.

Note. Only the manager has the ability to send the document back for revision when the status of the consolidated document is In Progress.
Cancelled

This status indicates that the document and all its associated evaluations is cancelled. Managers can cancel documents on the Manager Evaluation page until the time that the document status is Acknowledged or Complete. HR administrators can cancel documents at any time using their own Cancel Document page.

Note. The Available for Review, Review Held, and Acknowledged statuses never apply when the approval process option is set to No Approval - No Review Held or Approval No Review Held. In these cases, employees can only view the manager's document when the status is Complete.

Review Processes

Review process options, document statuses, and approval status values control:

The page elements that are available.
The different levels of access that managers, employees, and HR administrators have to the document.
The actions that managers, employees, and HR administrators can perform at different points in the review and approval cycle.

Note. Other evaluation participants are not affected by review and approval processes.

The tables in this section illustrate how document status and approval status work together to control user actions on the manager document for each approval process option.

Note. The buttons that are listed in these tables are hidden until they are valid for use.

Approval Before Review Held

This table describes the Approval Before Review Held process actions and statuses.

Action	Document Status	Approval Status
1. Manager completes edits to the document.	In Progress	Not Submitted
2. Manager submits the document for approval.	In Progress	Submitted
3. All persons in the approval chain approve the document.	In Progress	Approved
4. Manager marks the document as available for review.	Available for Review	Approved
5. Manager discusses document with employee and marks the document as review held.	Review Held	Approved
6. Employee or manager acknowledges that the review occurred.	Acknowledged	Approved
7. Manager marks the review as completed.	Complete	Approved

Note. If approval is denied in step three, the document status remains In Progress and the approval status changes to Denied.

Approval After Review Held

This table describes the Approval After Review Held process actions and statuses.

Action	Document Status	Approval Status
1. Manager completes edits to the document.	In Progress	Not Submitted
2. Manager clicks the Available for Review button.	Available for Review	Not Submitted
3. Manager discusses document with employee and clicks the Review Held button.	Review Held	Not Submitted
4. Employee or manager clicks the Acknowledge button to acknowledge the document.	Acknowledged	Not Submitted
5. Manager clicks the Submit for Approval button	Acknowledged	Submitted
6. All persons in the approval chain approve the document.	Acknowledged	Approved
7. Manager clicks the Complete button to complete the document.	Complete	Approved

Note. If approval is denied in step six, the document status changes to In Progress and the approval status changes to Denied.

Approval No Review Held

This table describes the Approval No Review Held process actions and statuses.

Action	Document Status	Approval Status
1. Manager completes edits to the document.	In Progress	Open
2. Manager clicks the Submit for Approval button to initiate the approval process.	In Progress	Submitted
3. All persons in the approval chain approve the document.	In Progress	Approved
4. Manager clicks the Complete button to complete the document.	Complete	Approved

Note. If approval is denied in step three, the document status changes toIn Progress and the approval status changes to Denied.

No Approval No Review Held

This table describes the No Approval No Review Held process actions and statuses.

Action	Document Status	Approval Status
1. Manager completes edits to the document.	In Progress	Approval Not Required
2. Manager clicks the Complete button to complete the document.	Complete	Approval Not Required

No Approval Review Held

This table describes the No Approval Review Held process actions and statuses.

Action	Document Status	Approval Status
1. Manager completes edits to the document.	In Progress	Approval Not Required
2. Manager clicks the Available for Review button.	Available for Review	Approval Not Required
3. Manager discusses review with employee and clicks the Review Held button.	Review Held	Approval Not Required
4. Employee or manager clicks the Acknowledge button to acknowledge the document.	Acknowledged	Approval Not Required
5. Manager clicks the Complete button to complete the document.	Complete	Approval Not Required

Conducting Reviews

This section lists the pages used to conduct reviews.

Pages Used to Conduct Reviews

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
Available for Review page	EP_APPR_MAIN2	Manager Self Service, Performance Management, Performance Documents, Current Documents Click a document link to open the Document Details page. Click the Available for Review link on the Manager Evaluation step to open the Manager Evaluation page. Click the Available for Review button on the Manager Evaluation page. Manager Self Service, Performance Management, Development Documents, Current Documents Click a document link to open the Document Details page. Click the Available for Review link on the Manager Evaluation step to open the Manager Evaluation page. Click the Available for Review button on the Manager Evaluation page.	Confirm that you want to change the document status to Available for Review.
Reopen Evaluation	EP_APPR_MAIN2	Manager Self Service, Performance Management, Performance Documents, Current Documents Click a document link to open the Document Details page. Click the Reopen link on the Manager Evaluation step to open the Manager Evaluation page. Click the Reopen button on the Manager Evaluation page. Manager Self Service, Performance Management, Development Documents, Current Documents Click a document link to open the Document Details page. Click the Reopen link on the Manager Evaluation step to open the Manager Evaluation page. Click the Reopen button on the Manager Evaluation page.	Confirm that you want to reopen a document that you previously marked as Available for Review.

Approving Documents

This section discusses how to approve documents.

Pages Used to Approve Documents

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
Select Transaction to Approve	SS_LIST	Manager Self-Service, Performance Management, Approve Documents, Select Transaction to Approve	Select the employees for whom you want to grant or deny approval of a document.
View Approval Status Summary	SS_LIST	Manager Self-Service, Performance Management, View Approval Status, View Approval Status Summary	View a list of employees and their approval status.
Approve Transaction View Approval Status Detail Approval Request - Confirmation	EP_APPRAISAL_MGR	Select a document on the Select Transaction to Approve page.	Approve or deny approval of a document.
Approve Performance Documents Administer Request - Confirmation	EP_APPRAISAL_ADM	Workforce Development, Performance Management, Administer Documents, Approve Documents, Approve Performance Documents Click the link for a listed document.	Approve or deny approval of a document.
Process Comments	SS_PROC_CMNTS_SEC	Click the Comments link on the Approve Performance Documents page.	View comments that other approvers enter.
Save Confirmation	EO_SAVE_CONFIRM	Click Save after approving or denying approval for a document on the Approve Performance Documents page.	Confirm that you intended to approve or deny approval of the document and save the action.

Selecting Documents to Approve

Access the Select Transaction to Approve page.

This page enables you to view the documents that you need to approve. It is identical to the View Approval Status Summary page except the Select Transaction to Approve page lists only documents that you have not yet approved, while the View Approval Status Summary page lists all documents where you are an approver, regardless of whether you have yet approved them.

Approving a Document

Access the Approve Transaction or the Approve Performance Documents page.

Note. These two pages are identical in use, except that the Approve Transaction page is used by managers and the Approve Performance Documents page is used by HR Administrators.

The employee's name appears at the top of the page, followed by the employee ID.

Performance Document

Performance Document Details

Click this link to access the Manager Evaluation page in display-only mode. This page contains the consolidated evaluations and comments from all participants.

Process Detail

Detailed information about the approval process for a document appears in this group box.

Name	Name of the individual who submitted the document for approval as well as the name of any individual who is required to approve the document.
Role Name	Role of the individuals that are required to perform actions in the document approval process.
Process Action	Approval action that each individual in the approval queue performed. Values are Submit, Approve, and Deny.
Process Action Date	Date of the approval process action.
Comments	Click this link to view comments made by other approvers.

Process Action

Select whether to approve the review or deny approval.

Comment

Use this text box to explain the reason for approving the document, or denying approval.

Resolving Approval Transactions in Error

An approval transaction might result in an error status if a participating manager is not found. Review the setup tables pertaining to the manager access type that is in use. The transaction is available to the next approver for approval or denial. An error message appears at the top of the administrator's Approve Performance Documents page indicating the nature of the error.