Prevent task completion if approval of Proofs and Approval are not complete

[JAMIEDE]

I am trying to add Approvals on 3 specific Review Tasks on my project. I have also added proofs to these tasks, with additional approval requested there. 

However, Workfront is still allowing me to bring the task to 100% complete without any approvals on the docs or Approval section. Am I missing something?? 

[Richard_Le_]

Hi,

Workfront will allow you to complete a task where there are Document/Proof approvals outstanding, they are independant from Task statuses. 

One solution you could deploy to prevent this would be to add an approval to the task that is triggered when it is set to complete (triggering a status of "Complete - Pending Approval"). The approval could be assigned to the task owner/project manager etc., and it would be their responsibility to approve the task (and therefore close it) once all Document/Proof approval decisions have been given.

Best Regards,

Rich.

[JAMIEDE]

Thanks for the response, Rich! It's an excellent idea!

Would that process work for people who do not have WF licenses? The reviewers and approvers of the proofs are often non-Workfront users. When I tested approvals from non-users, they were able to sign-off, however, would I be able to actually "assign" a task to a non-user? 

Further, I am wondering if you might be able to answer a question on approvals themselves. I have read so much Help content (which I will say is amazing in most cases) but I can't seem to figure out how to differentiate... for example: 

If I am looking at a Project as a whole, the Approval tab has me create a single-use approval process. Since it's based on the entirety of the project, is this tab generally for a final sign-off of an entire project? Because if I select the Task I want approvals for (ex. reviews), I add a different approval there.... these two approvals are different, correct? If the reviewer needs to review actual content, it's better to use a Proof approval? Or would I still have both? I think it's the multiple "approvals" that are confusing me. Sorry - this turned a bit more detailed than planned! 

I attached an image of both approvals (one for proof and one for task) so it's clear. Essentially, would these ever BOTH be used? Or if the Task was a review of docs, would you just use the Proof and not the other approval request through the status? And either way, there's nothing to STOP the project from being marked Complete without sign-off/approval? 

Thanks, Rich! And apologies for the long reply!

[Richard_Le_]

Hey,

No problem, happy I could help!

People without paid licenses can give approval decisions. They can also be assigned to tasks, however they get limited access to the task (they can't change status, record time or change assignment). Generally you wouldn't need to assign non-license users to the task however, since they will get access to it when the approval is assigned to them.

There's no right or wrong decision as to which approvals you should use in which scenario. Some people will use only one type of approval, others will use a combination of task, project and document/proof. It entirely depends on your use case and what works best for you. I would encourage you to test out the different approval types with your users to figure out which ones suit you.

Project approvals are generally used at the start of a project (to approve scope, budget, resourcing, timeline etc.) or at the end of a project. They can be used to approve the project in it's enirety (deliverables), but i've also seen them used to validate that organisational process has been followed correctly (i.e., custom forms are complete, billing records have been billed, portfolio association is correct).

You are correct that Project approvals, Task approvals and Document/Proof approvals are different. You can use one or all of these approval types as you see fit (at the same time or independently).

In my original response, I was proposing that you use a document/proof approval AND a task approval. The benefit of this is that each document on a task can be reviewed and decisions made independently of oneanother (with document/proof approvals), and the task would be prevented from being closed (with a task approval). You could, however, just use a task approval where the approver would need to give an overall decision that would encompass all of the documents on that task.

Hope that makes sense and helps! 

Best Regards,

Rich.