Approving orders

1 Opening the approvals page

From	How
The shop	The approvals button (a tick) in the tool band. It is only there when something is waiting for you; the number is how many.
My Account	Approvals waiting, shown on the same condition.
A mail	The link in an approval mail opens the page, often already filtered to that order.

On a phone, the link opens a version of the page made for small screens.

2 Orders waiting for you

Waiting is where the page opens: every order that needs your decision, as a card.

The approvals page with three orders waiting, each card showing the application, order number and date, price, requester, device, reason, the kind of approval, a comment box and Approve, Send back and Decline buttons — Three orders waiting. The last one is an install request.

On the card	What it tells you
Application	What was ordered, with the order number, when it was ordered and the price. A lease shows its length.
Requested by and Device	Who ordered it, and for which device (with its organisational unit).
Reason	The requester's message to you.
Approval	How the approvers work together: any one of them can approve, every approver must approve, or each must approve in order.
Approver group	When you approve as a member of a group. Show members lists who else can decide.
Show details	The requester's answers to the order details, and Download attachments when files were attached.
Install request	The requester cannot see this program in their shop and asked for it. Approving installs it for them only.

One order card with Show details opened, listing the order details Project and Licence type — A card with the order details open.

3 Deciding

Write a comment to the requester if you like, then click one of the buttons. The comment is optional, but it helps, especially when you decline.

Button	What happens
Approve	Your step is approved. If you were the last approver, the installation starts; otherwise the order moves on to the next approver.
Send back	Returns the order to the requester to change the order details. It lands in their basket with your comment. Only offered for orders with order details, and never for install requests.
Decline	The order is declined and not installed.

No second question Your decision is saved as soon as you click. The card disappears from the list and a line at the top confirms it, for example Approved: … The installation starts in the background.

Requests to make a device another user's primary device appear here too, as Device reassignment cards. They can only be approved or declined.

4 Several at once

Tick the box on each card you want to decide, or All, then click Approve selected or Decline selected. A comment you wrote on a card is sent with that order. The line at the top tells you how many were decided, and whether any had already been decided by someone else in the meantime. Sending back is done one order at a time.

5 Search and links from mails

Type in the search box to narrow the list by application, requester, device or order number; it filters as you type. A link from a mail shows a chip such as Order 155122 or Requested by: … above the list; click its × to see everything again. The reload button fetches new orders.

6 Your decisions

Decided lists what has been decided on orders that were waiting for you, newest first.

The Decided view: a table with application and order, requester and device, the decision with who decided and when, and the price, for the last 30 days, with a CSV button — Decided, for the last 30 days.

The detail of a decided order: Approved by you, the requester, device, price and reason, and the approval flow with its single step — Click a row for the whole story.

Use	To
Period	Show the last 7 days, 30 days (the default), 3 months or 12 months. At most the newest 1,000 decisions are shown; choose a shorter period or search to find older ones.
A row	Open the order: the decision, the requester's reason, your message, the order details and the whole approval flow.
CSV	Download the rows shown, with the search you have typed, as a file for Excel.

7 When you are away

The Temporary approver panel with a person search and From and To and including dates — Temporary approver.

Going on holiday? The person button in the tool band opens Temporary approver. Choose a colleague and the period, from and to and including, and click Save. In that period they can decide the orders that wait for you.

The panel then shows who it is and whether the period is scheduled, active or ended; Remove stops it early. You cannot choose yourself. If your colleague has a temporary approver of their own, the panel warns you.

The button is only there when your organisation allows approvers to choose their own stand-in.

8 Best practice

Choose a temporary approver who has no temporary approver of their own. If the person you choose already has one, the page shows a warning and Save is disabled until you choose someone else.
Enter both dates. Save does nothing until From and To are both set and From is earlier than To.
Remove the temporary approver when you are back. Remove ends the temporary approver before the period is over.

9 Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause	What to do
“Please note that 'name' has assigned 'name' as a temporary approver.” (shown when you choose the person; Save is disabled)	The person you chose already has a temporary approver. Temporary approvers do not chain, so the second one would not be used.	Choose someone who does not have a temporary approver of their own.
“You cannot be your own temporary approver”	You chose your own name as the temporary approver.	Choose a colleague.
“The temporary approver could not be saved. The log has the details”	An error stopped the change. It is written to the log as a critical entry, Failed to save temporary approver.	Open the Log, read the entry for the error, then click Save again.
No message, and Save does nothing.	From or To is empty, or From is not earlier than To.	Set both dates, with From earlier than To, then click Save.
“Your approver account could not be identified, so a temporary approver cannot be set here”	The page could not match your account to an approver.	Ask your SoftwareCentral administrator to check that you are set up as an approver.
There is no Temporary approver button.	The setting Allow approvers to set a temporary approver is off under Settings.	Ask your administrator to turn the setting on, or to set the temporary approver for you.