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Approving a Document

If you have been assigned the approver role in PolicyTech™, a document owner can assign you to approve a document. Then, when that document is submitted or automatically moved to approval, you receive a task assignment notification in the form of an email (if you are set up to receive emails from PolicyTech), and a task is added to your My Tasks list.

Note: If, in addition to being assigned the approver role, you've been assigned the "Completes Approval Assignments in Bulk" role, you have the ability to complete multiple approval tasks at once. See Approving Multiple Documents at Once for details.

To open a document you've been assigned to approve, do one of the following:

Open the task notification email, and then click the document link.

Click MY TASKS, and then, in the Approve area, click the document title.

Find and open the document using the I Approve option under My Documents (see Finding a Document You Are Assigned to Own, Proxy Author, Write, Review, Approve, or Read for details.)

(Conditional) If, when you open the document, you see a window like the one below, follow the instructions in Opening a Document from the File Information Window, and then resume with the next step in these instructions.

Note: If you see an alert like the one below, it means that another user (another approver or a document control administrator) is working on the document in edit mode. If, after reviewing the document, you need to revise it, you will not be able to do so until the other user finishes and closes the document. If you want to be notified when the document is available, select Notify me by email when the document is no longer checked out, and then click OK to clear the warning.

Check for and review the following: attachments, notes, discussions, change summary (see Reviewing Supplementary Materials for details).
Read the document carefully and completely.

Note: If you're using a Windows computer and the document you're approving is a Word or HTML document, then if one or more other approvers have already reviewed the document and made revisions, you see those revisions, with each approver's changes in a different color text. You can rest your cursor on (hover over) one of the color-coded changes to see who made the change and when.

(Optional) To see if other assigned approvers have revised or declined the document and their reasons for doing so, go to the Approver Status page of the Overview (see Working with the Document Overview for details).

Accept, revise, or decline the document. Click a link below for further instructions.