Requests that are forwarded to another approver are not going to next stage

[Former Member]

We are having an issue with AE 5.2 with Forwarded requests. When requests are forwarded to another approver and this person then approves the requests, they are not going on to the next stage in our workflow. We have the Forward Type option set to 'Any one Approver' for the workflow stage. Have also tried forwarding the requests with both the Forward With No Return and Forward With Return options.

The approver that is receiving these Forwards is not listed as one of the approvers for the role in the request. Is this the issue, are we not using the Forward process correctly, or is this a bug in AE 5.2. (I think we are currently on SP 9 of GRC 5.2.)

Thanks.

[Former Member]

Please include the person in the approvers list of a particular stage at which the request is being forwarded and select the default forward option. Remove "Anyone Approvers" option. After the request is forwarded to a person and that approves the request, the request will appear back in the AE queue with status at next stage. Try this. It should work.

[Former Member]

I'm not clear on your instructions, so let me restate them to make sure I have them correct. This is for our Role Approvers stage (we call it the BDO stage, for Business Data Owner). This is the stage where the approvers for the roles listed in the request give their approval/rejection. Are you saying:

1. Anyone being forwarded a role for approval has to already be listed as an approver for that role? If this is true, then I don't really understand the point of forwarding the request to them. They would already have received an email notification about this request and it would already show in their queue, just like all of the other role approvers. I was under the impression that the Forward Request function was used to send the request to someone other than the approvers already assigned.

2. You then state that I need to "select the default forward option". I don't know what option you are referring to here. Is this one of the settings for the stage? The only Forward related options I see there are Forward Allowed and Forward Type. Where is this option and what is the default?

3. Lastly I am to "Remove "Anyone Approvers" option". Am assuming this is for the Forward Type setting for the stage, not the Approval Type setting (they have the same values). Can't really remove this option, would have to change it to the "All Approvers" value. Is that correct?

Thanks.

[Former Member]

Hi Bob,

I am running AE 5.2 but do not use the "forward" feature. For request that require "role approvers" I have set up a seperate initiaor that includes the additional Stage for Role approval.

I have initiators for 1) New User w/ no role approval 2) New User w/ role approval 3) Change User w/ no role approval 4) Change User w/ no role approval

My "no role approvals" go through three stages 1) security initial review 2) Internal Control review 3) Final security provisioning; my "role approvals" go through four stages 1) security initial review 2) Role Approval Stage 3) Internal Control review 3) Final security provisioning

If a request has roles that require approval and some that do not, the request will take the two seperate paths based on the roles defined for each; the provisoning will complete once both paths have completed all stages

This allows us to treat the role approval just like any stage with assigned approvers and if multiple approvers allow for any one approver to complete the stage

This is different from your approach of forwarding for role approval; I define the roles to the initialtors that require role approval, but gives you another perspective of doing it

Jerry Synoga

Ryerson,Inc.

630-758-2021

[Former Member]

Thanks for the input, but it doesn't apply to our situation. We have just one workflow path with a Role Approver stage in the middle. All roles have approvers assigned to them, most even have multiple approvers.

Our situation is that occassionally a special circumstance will occur and the original approvers want to forward a request over to someone else for approval (might require a higher approval, or user is in a unique position, or they're changing approvers for that role, etc.).

Our understanding of how the Forward Request process worked was that the original approver could just forward the request over to this new approver. The new approver would approve the request and then the request would go on to the next stage in the workflow.

Our problem is that it is not going on to the next stage, it is staying in the Role Approver stage and it no longer shows up in anyones queue. Neither the original approver or the new approver see it when they log in to AE.

Thanks.

[Former Member]

Was able to confirm from another source that the person being forwarded to must already be listed as an approver for that role. Don't really see the point of the forward function then since this person already knows about the request and already can approve it.