CUP 5.3 SP8 - Escalation process for manager approval stage

[Former Member]

Hello,

We have our basic workflow configured that when a request is created by a user, the first stage it goes to is their Manager for approval.

We are running into the scenario; what if a Manager forgets to approve or isn't available or is out of office and can't approve the request? We think we want to setup escalation of some sort but are unsure how to go about it.

The escalation options that we have are:

No Escalation

Forward to Next Stage

Forward to Alternate Approver

Forward to Admin

Intially, we felt that "Forward to Next Stage" would suffice because Security Admins is our next stage. If the alloted time passed for Managers to approve the request, escalation would move the request to our Security Admins. However, "Forward to Next Stage" is essentially an Approval, meaning Security Admins will get the email saying the request was Approved, not the email saying the request was Escalated. This will cause confusion with our Security Admins; they won't know that the request was in fact escalated because they got an approval email.

We want Security Admins to ultimately get the authority in this instance so they can see that a Manager did not review in time, or is out of office so they can forward the request to a different manager.

Keep in mind, I do understand we can have the Manager setup approval delegation. This doesn't help us however if the manager forgets to set his approver delegator when he leaves the office or really is in the office but is unavailable due to various reasons.

I'm curious about the option "Forward to Alternate Approver." - who is the alternate approver for managers? Is it always the delegate? Is it possible that the alternate approver is the next level up on the HR heirarchy?

Let me know if I need to clarify my issue.

Thanks!

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Jes Behrens

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Jes,

We have 2 approvers for each role. We defined in the Role Approver Stage that it be routed to the alternate approver should the main approver not respond in the next 3 days (via Forward to Alternate Approver). Bear in mind, once it is escalated to the alternate approver, the main approver will not be able to view/approve the request anymore. If the alternate approver does not approve/reject the request, the request will be left as is.

In our case, we have used the functionality in CUP to pre-define the alternate approver rather than in your case, you would want to only escalate it as and when your Security Admin decides to. I believe if your Security Admin staff has admin rights in CUP, they are able to forward it to another approver via the Administrator tab. Else you can create a new stage to foward to your admin staff if it is not action upon.

[Former Member]

Hi Jes,

I understand what you are looking for. For Manager approver determinator, the alternate approver won't do any good. There is no place where you can configure alternate approver for Manager. You can use forward to Admin.

If the security admin looks at the audit log, it should say that this request was escalated.

Regards,

Alpesh

[Former Member]

Thank you both for your input. Much appreciated!