Audience - Power Users
Overview
When documents are submitted in response to a File Request task, it's often important to review and approve them before moving forward. Contract Eagle allows you to create a custom approval workflow triggered by these submissions, helping you ensure quality control, compliance, and accountability in your document handling process.
By the end of this article, you’ll understand:
how to configure an approval workflow for submitted documents,
when this type of workflow is useful,
how it helps maintain oversight and improve process integrity
In some cases, you may want to set up an approval process that is triggered when someone completes a File Request Task - allowing the submitted files to be reviewed and approved before proceeding. The steps below cover how to do this, but at a high level you need to:
provide a Status Type to apply against a contract when documents are provided, e.g. "Documents Submitted";
edit the contract type, so that if a File Request Task is completed, the status of the contract changes, e.g. to "Documents Submitted"; and
create an approval rule to pick up contracts with this status.
Set up the approval process
Provide a Status Type
Go to the Configuration menu > Status Types.
Click the Add New Status Type button.
Enter the status type description, e.g. "Documents Submitted".
Select the relevant Business Unit.
Under "Internal Code", select Open.
You may wish to customise the contract status colour to make it more visually distinguishable on the dashboard or in search results.
Add any comments as desired under the Comments tab, e.g. "Used for approval rule on File Request Tasks".
Click Save.
Edit the Contract Type
Go to the Configuration menu > Contract Types.
Select the contract type for which you wish to configure this document request approval rule and click on it to Edit. If there are multiple contract types which need this approval rule, they will need to be edited one at a time.
Go to the Documents tab > File Request Task section.
In the field Contract Status After Upload, select the Status Type you created in the previous step, e.g. "Documents Submitted".
Click Save.
Create an Approval Rule
Go to the Configuration menu > Approval Rules > Add New Approval Rule button.
If required, you can specify a particular Business Unit or Contract Type, otherwise leave the settings as All Business Units and All Contract Types.
Under "Status", select the status you created in the earlier step, e.g. "Documents Submitted".
Uncheck New Contract Entered. Make sure Contract Updated is checked.
You may wish to Allow Self Approval - check or uncheck this box as required.
Select your Approvers from your list of Roles or Users - or a combination. The nominated approvers will receive an email when the contract requires approval, however, any other users with relevant permissions to a contract could also approve it if required.
Under "Status After Approval" select Open.
Set an appropriate "Status After Rejection" - Open is also fine to use here.
Click Save.
How the approval process works
User A creates a File Request Task, and assigns it to User B.
User B receives an email that a task has been assigned to them, and can see the task on their dashboard.
User B attaches a file to the File Request Task and closes it.
The Approver (specified in the Approval Rule) receives an email that a contract requires their approval. They can also see this on their dashboard under "Approval required".
The Approver clicks the link in the email to view the contract.
The Approver clicks the links to view the documents, as per the screenshot below.
If satisfied, the Approver clicks the Approve button.
