Introduction

This article covers the new Projects workflow and approvals functionality. It includes new approval workflows, project-level configuration options, and a new Approvals tab for tracking outstanding contractor reviews.

Project Configuration

There are three new updates within the Projects section:

• Approvals: See your outstanding approvals for contractors across all your projects.
• Configure: Add and adjust project workflows.
• Reviewer: See who is assigned to review each stage of a project. This can also be updated from the workflow you created, with the right permissions.

Setting Up a Workflow

Select Projects, then from the Configure tab, click Add Workflow.

Each Workflow will have multiple approval steps that can be configured.

You’ll need to assign at least one approver to each step. Each step can be configured to start immediately or wait for approval from a previous step:

• Starts immediately: The step is active as soon as the workflow begins.
• Gated: The step only becomes active once a prior step is approved. For example, PM Finance Approval can be set to start only after GC Finance Approval has been approved, rather than running at the same time as Safety Approval.

Once saved, the workflow appears in your list of active workflows, along with which projects are currently using it.

Assigning a Workflow to a Project

 Once a workflow has been created, it can be assigned to new projects from the Project Workflow dropdown on the Projects Dashboard.

Working Through Gated Approvals

Once a workflow is applied to a project, each step behaves according to its gating rules:

• Setting a step's status to Approved unlocks the next layer of approval for the assigned approver.
• Each approval section displays the reviewer whose approval is currently required.

The example below demonstrates approving Bancroft Brothers steel for the District Ave Expansion Project:

Sending a Step Back

If a reviewer doesn’t approve a contractor on a given step, they can use ‘Sent Back’ instead of approving:

• A comment is required when sending a step back.
• We recommend using an @mention in the comment to tag a specific person (for example, the PM who submitted the approval).
• Sending a step back automatically moves the previous step's status to Needs Review, even if it was previously approved.

Approvals Tab

The Approvals tab shows outstanding contractor reviews, organized into four views:

• Assigned to Me: Approvals where you're listed as a reviewer, grouped by project and shows how many contractors need to be reviewed at each stage.
• Pending: All outstanding approvals across every reviewer.
• Complete: Approvals that have already been finished.
• All: Every approval available, regardless of status.

Clicking into any item from this tab takes you directly to that step within the relevant project, and your browser's back button will return you to the Approvals tab.

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