Risk Assessment Approval Workflows
- Chaitanya Santosh Purighalla (Unlicensed)
- Mahesh Adimulam (Unlicensed)
Conceptual de-brief :
With an objective of making risk assessment application cater to different types of assessments as per business requirements, different Approval Workflows have been configured in the Module Setup screen. This will pave the way for increased flexibility in using Risk Assessment module and also assign/configure multiple approvers, reviewers and evaluators depending on the business requirement.
Background :
In the existing system of Risk Assessment process, we can only configure 1 reviewer and one approver, There is no provision to have different approval processes for different Risk assessments. This limits the ability to assign different approval workflows for different risk assessments, thereby, putting a limitation on accomplishing a plethora of business objectives into practice.
For example :
- A Risk assessment with potential high hazard and risk levels might require "2 reviewers and 2 approvers" whereas another risk assessment with relatively lesser levels of potential hazard and risk would require only 1 reviewer and 1 approver. There might also be risk assessments which require only self approval.
- The Approval workflow/process required for any assessment thus depends on the type of the risk assessment and it is not necessary that all risk assessments would require the same persons/number of persons to approve the assessment.
- The same number of steps in the approval process may also vary with respect to the assessment type.
Thus, the limitation in the existing system is that it restricts the approval process to a single approval workflow. Hence, all risk assessments ,irrespective of their severity or importance need to be passed through the same approval workflow.
Approval Workflows :
- Approval workflows in Risk Assessment will allow the users to configure various approval workflows ie select the required number of approvers, reviews and evaluators.
- In Module setup, there will be a set of pre-defined approval workflow definitions available for system administrators [Module Administrators, precisely] to choose from. These definitions can subsequently be used to configure various kinds of approval workflows.
- Once any approval workflow is set up in the Module Setup ,the same would be available for the users in the risk assessment set up screen.
- Users can create any number of workflows by choosing the number of approvers and reviewers in the module set up screen.
Available Workflow Definitions :
- The following workflows definitions will be available for the users to set up in the Module Setup :
- Submit ,Review,Submit ,Approve, Submit, Complete
- Review and Approve
- Self Approve
- Submit ,Review and Approve
- Submit and Approve
- Submit,Review,Evaluate,Approve
- Each of the above mentioned approval workflow definitions can be further used to configure the actual workflow.
- For example ,the users can define the number of Reviewers and number of Approvers in the Review and Approve workflow.
- Similarly, the users can define the number of Reviewers ,Evaluators and Approvers in the Submit,Review,Evaluate,Approve workflow.
- Thus,every workflow definition can be used to configure any required workflow as per the business / functional requirement.
- However,system will provide the flexibility to choose one created workflow in the Module Setup as a default workflow.
- If any workflow is defined as a default workflow in the Module Setup, then the same will be selected by-default in the Risk Assessment creation screen when the user is setting up a new assessment.
Defining Approval Timelines :
- Users can define the time frame for approvals.Based on the values entered for fields of the approval due date will be calculated.
- For example : In the screenshot below,the approval due date for the first review is two days after the assessment is submitted .The approval due date for the final approval is 3 days after the first review is completed.
- Based on the approval time frames, the notifications for escalations will be generated from the system.
Example Workflows :
- Below is the list of created workflows.As mentioned above any number of workflows can be created from the basic workflow definitions shown above.
- The default is marked for the 2 Reviewer ,1 Approver workflow below.
- In the Risk assessment Set up ,the workflow will show as shown below .
- Users will need to select the actual Reviewer and Approver names here
- Users also need to enter the Reviewer Due Dates and the Approval Due Dates.
Sample Approval Workflows
Approval Workflow 1 : Submit and Approve
Assessment
- Assessor is John Smith.
- Assessment Approver is Bruce Jones
- Here ,first John Smith (Assessor)submits the assessment for approval.He clicks on the add button in the approval tab and selects the command "Submit for approval" for Bruce Jones( The approver) to approve the Assessment.
- Bruce Jones (Assessment Approver) then gets the add button to approve the assessment.
- There is no assessment reviewer or evaluator in this workflow.
Approval Workflow 2 : Submit ,Review and Approve
Assessment
- Assessor is John Smith.
- Assessment Reviewer is Paul Jones
- Assessment Approver is Bruce Jones
First the assessor Submits the assessment..Once the assessment is submitted ,it needs to be reviewed and then evaluated before the final approval.Thus the reviewer (Paul Jones) gets the add button for review of the assessment.
Once Paul Jones reviews the assessment ,the assessment will be sent for approval.Bruce Jones (Approver) will see the Add button for approval of the assessment.Once Bruce Jones approves the assessments he can click on the add button in the approval tab and select the value " Approved"
The approver ,Bruce Jones then gets the assessment .He can then select the option of Approve to approve the assessment.
In each of the steps,as seen above,the respective user selects the command to push the assessment to the next state.For example ,the reviewer selects the option of "Submit for approval" .This means that the reviewer has "Reviewed" the assessment and he is sending for Approval.
Approval Workflow 3 : Submit ,Review,Submit ,Approve, Submit, Complete (Only for Allergan)
Assessment
- Assessor is John Smith.
- Assessment Reviewer is Paul Jones
- Assessment Approver is Bruce Jones
In this flow the assessor submits the assessment in each step.
Once the assessor submits ,Paul Jones reviews the assessment.The assessment then goes to the reviewed state.The reviewer here cannot push to the next state.Only the Assessor can push the assessment to the next step.
Then after the assessor pushes the assessment to the "Submitted for approval " status.The assessment is then approved by the Approver Bruce Jones.After the Approval the assessment is pushed to the state of Submitted for completion for the Assessor.The assessor then completes the assessment.
Approval Workflow 4 : Submit,Review,Evaluate,Approve
Assessment
- Assessor is John Smith.
- Assessment Reviewer is Paul Jones
- Assessment Evaluator is Carl Smiths
- Assessment Approver is Bruce Jones
First the assessor Submits the assessment..Once the assessment is submitted ,it needs to be reviewed and then evaluated before the final approval.Thus the reviewer (Paul Jones) gets the add button for review of the assessment.
Once Paul Jones reviews the assessment ,the assessment will be sent for evaluation.Carl Smiths (Evaluator) will see the Add button for evaluation of the assessment.Once Carl Smiths evaluates he can click on the add button in the approval tab and select the value " Submit for approval"
The approver ,Bruce Jones then gets the assessment .He can then select the option of Approve to approve the assessment.
In each of the steps,as seen above,the respective user selects the command to push the assessment to the next state.For example ,the reviewer selects the option of "Submit for evaluation" .This means that the reviewer has "Reviewed" the assessment and is sending for Evaluation.
Approval Workflow 5 : Review and Approve
Assessment
- Assessor is John Smith.
- Assessment Reviewer is Paul Jones
- Assessment Approver is Bruce Jones
First the assessor Submits the assessment..Once the assessment is submitted ,it needs to be reviewed and then evaluated before the final approval.Thus the reviewer (Paul Jones) gets the add button for review of the assessment.
Once Paul Jones reviews the assessment ,the assessment will be sent for approval.Bruce Jones (Approver) will see the Add button for approval of the assessment.Once Bruce Jones approves the assessments he can click on the add button in the approval tab and select the value " Approved"
The approver ,Bruce Jones then gets the assessment .He can then select the option of Approve to approve the assessment.
In each of the steps,as seen above,the respective user selects the command to push the assessment to the next state.For example ,the reviewer selects the option of "Submit for approval" .This means that the reviewer has "Reviewed" the assessment and he is sending for Approval.
Approval Workflow 6 : Self Approve
Assessment
- Assessor is John Smith.
- Approver is John Smith
John Smith prepares the assessment .On Saving the assessment goes to draft state automatically.
John Smith then approves the assessment.
Field Information Table
| Field Name | Details/Description |
|---|---|
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