Pros and Cons of using task-based approvals vs multiple tasks?

[Ryan_McGee]

I am trying to prepare a pros/cons list for our internal teams about potentially leveraging task approval workflows. But I'm curious how/if others are using.

Let's take this example: right now we have a content creation parent task for marketing material creation that has a few basic tasks: pull the data, review the data, create copy, edit copy, lay everything out in In Design, and then have someone approve the piece in its entirety. Right now that's 6 tasks, but I could see it being a multi-stage approval process. The process seems intuitive, but I could also see it being challenging if you have to say go back to data if issues are found mid-approval.

If you have used workflow approvals, what has worked and failed? Looking to the group for real-life success and challenge stories.

[skyehansen]

* other posts have mentioned that while "rejecting" a task will change the status, "approving" a task doesn't change the status in any way, which makes multi stage task approvals messy (confusing and unsatisfying)

* users have, on the whole, wanted one report to look at. Having approvals messes this up because now they have to look in two places for their work.

* for whatever reason, users have no problem ignoring a pending approval and continuing on with the workflow. We also regularly get help requests from folks wondering why they're unable to close a project even though it's 100% complete, and half the time it traces back to an unapproved task (the other half traces back to an open issue)

We do have one workflow that has gone in a different direction and use a custom field for all of these steps. So to them, this would be one task, status would be set to In Progress, and then their team custom field would have options for Data Pulled, Data Reviewed, Copy Created, and so on. It's not for everyone, and particularly not if all steps have to be documented as part of the historical record.

[KellieGardner]

For us we like the use of task/issue approvals because it provides an audit trail that satisfies our audit team and keeps us out of trouble. However, as Skye mentions, I have experienced all of those with users when I've managed other instances.