Review and Approve
Who can do this?
Reviewers
Approvers
When can you do this?
Reviewers and Approvers can submit the review or approval in any phase in an active workflow except the Initiation Phase.
For phases other than the Negotiation Phase, only the current sequenced Reviewer or Approver can review or approve.
For the Negotiation Phase, the Admin creating the workflow template selects one of two review types: Sequenced (the default selection) or Open.
If Sequenced is selected as the review type, only the current sequenced Reviewer or Approver can review or approve.
If Open Review is selected as the review type, Reviewers and Approvers that are listed as active participants can review or approve at any point during the Negotiation Phase.
Where can you do this?
You can submit a review, submit an approval, decline to review, or decline to approve by clicking the appropriate button below the workflow header.
If you choose to submit a review or approval, the action, your name, and the timestamp will appear in the workflow history.
If you choose to decline to review or approve, the action, your name, the timestamp, and your reason for declining will appear in the workflow history.
How to Complete a Review or Approval
To access the application, you can either click the link in the email you received asking you to participate in a review or approval, or go to the URL provided to you by symplr Contract.
With the exception of Negotiation Phases with review type of Sequenced, if accessing the workflow out of turn, you will see a message below the phase bar stating that it is not your turn.
Navigate to the workflow.
On the workflow page, review the document (or documents) in the preview window.
If needed, click Download to download the document for editing, then save your changes and click Upload to upload the edited version.
Add any attachments.
Add any comments.
Click Submit Review or Submit Approval.
Upon completing a review or approval, the Phase Owner will receive an automated email notification notifying them that the review or approval has been completed.
How to Decline to Submit a Review or Approval
With the exception of Negotiation Phases with review type of Sequenced, this function is only available when the user is the active sequenced participant.
Declining to submit a review or approval does not apply to Signatories.
Click the Decline Review (or Decline Approval) button, which will appear to the left of the Submit Review (or Submit Approval) button.
In the decline modal, enter the reason you are declining.
In the decline modal, enter the reason you are declining.
Your reason will be recorded in the workflow history, as well as in the in-app (bell) and email notifications sent to the Phase Owner.
Click Decline.
Upon declining to submit a review or approval:
A đźš« will appear next to the participant that declined to review or approve.
The Phase Owner will automatically be sequenced into the workflow to review the decline.
The Phase Owner will receive an automated email notification alerting them to the submission of the review or approval being declined.
Below the phase action buttons, the Phase Owner will see the following message: Most recent participant has declined to review/approve. Please review Workflow History for reason and proceed accordingly.
Phase Owner Steps
If a participant declines to submit a review or approval, the Phase Owner should perform the following steps.
Navigate to the workflow.
In the workflow history, review the participant’s reason for declining.
Make any necessary adjustments to the participant sequence.
Click the Submit Review button, which will appear in place of the Complete Phase button.
If applicable, the phase will be routed to the next sequenced participant. If there are no more participants, you can simply complete the phase.
Open Review in the Negotiation Phase
Open Review vs. Sequenced Review
In sequenced review, Reviewers and Approvers must be the current sequenced participant to perform any actions, including in-app document editing.
In open review, Reviewers and Approvers can edit the documents and save their changes, then leave the workflow without submitting their review or approval. While that user is editing the workflow, it will be unavailable, i.e. locked, to other participants. This allows another Reviewer or Approver to start editing without having to wait for the other participants to submit their review or approval. Participants can edit the document multiple times (as it becomes available) before submitting their review or approval without having to be resequenced.
Setting Up Open Review
An Admin selects the review type (i.e., sequenced or open) for the Negotiation Phase during the creation of individual workflow templates.
By default, the Sequenced is the selected review type in both new and existing workflow templates.
To change a workflow template to open review, or to configure open review in a new workflow template:
Open the workflow template and click the edit icon (pencil) for the Negotiation Phase.
In the Review Type dropdown, select Open.
Within Workflows
In open review Negotiation Phases:
The Active Participants panel replaces the Participant Sequence panel in the workflow accordion.
The Workflow Available/Workflow Locked indicator appears above the document editor.
Each name in the Active Participants panel has a status indicator.
White outlined with gray indicates that they have not started review.
Yellow indicates that they are in the process of reviewing (i.e., they are editing the document or have edited the document and not yet submitted their review or approval)
Green indicates that they have completed their review or approval.
When a participant clicks inside the document body in the document editor, the workflow becomes locked to other participants.
The Workflow Locked indicator will replace the Workflow Available indicator, including for the user who locked it.
Other participants can hover over the indicator to see the name of the user who locked the document (i.e., began editing) and the date/timestamp of when they locked it.
While the workflow is locked, other participants may read the documents and submit their review or approval, but they will not be able to edit the documents.
If a user needs to stop editing but is not yet ready to submit their review or approval, they can click Save Version.
This will update the Version History.
The Workflow Locked indicator will change to Workflow Available and be open to editing by another participant.
The user’s indicator will remain yellow, indicating that they haven’t completed their review.
At any time during document editing, the user can strike Ctrl + S to save changes.
When the user has finished making changes and is ready to submit their review or approval, they can click Submit Review or Submit Approval.
The user will still be able to click Decline Review (or Approval).
To avoid confusion, each user will be listed only once in the Active Participants panel, regardless of how many roles they might serve within the Negotiation Phase. If a user is both a Reviewer and Approver within the same Negotiation Phase, then they will be listed as an Approver.
Timeouts
If the user stops working or hides the window, after 15 minutes, an Are you still working? message will appear.
If the user clicks Yes, then the workflow will remain locked and they can continue working.
If the user takes no action within 5 minutes of the message appearing, then it will be replaced with a Saved Changes message. Changes will autosave, and the workflow will revert to being available.
If the user navigates away from the page within the application, an Unsaved Changes message will appear.
If the user clicks Save and Continue, their changes will be saved and the workflow will revert to being available.
If the user clicks Keep Working, they’ll remain on the workflow page and the document will remain locked.