How to change Chain of Approval (COA)
This article describes how to change the Chain of Approval (COA) when already in production. We will go through the main points that you need to consider when changing the COA segments that might cause issues if not done properly.
Problem description
At some point, you might need to chain the setup of the Chain of Approval (COA). This might happen if your procedures change or if you decide to better optimize the approval workflow.
Changing the setup when the system is live might be risky and cause issues, so it is necessary to make sure it is done properly.
Type of Changes
The changes might be various:
Adding a new chain segment to the COA.
Removing an existing chain segment from the COA.
Moving one chain segment to another approval level.
Modifying the options that affect the approval workflow.
The above changes require certain actions:
creating,
re-linking (moving),
editing,
deleting/ settings to passive.
Solution
Step 1: Adjust the COA
Go to the Chain of Approval > Levels.
Create a new chain segment if needed.
Re-link the chain segments according to the new workflow.
If you don’t use the re-link function, then the documents liked to this level will loose it’s link and will be lost.
4. Remove the unnecessary chain segment or set it to passive.
Step 2: Re-link the documents.
If some of the chain segments were removed/ set to passive, it is necessary to re-link the current documents linked to this chain segment to a new segment. To relink the documents:
Go to the Chain of Approval > Documents Status > Documents in the system.
Search for the needed chain segment under the Current Node or Previous Node.
Click Re-link to link the documents to the new chain segment.
If the chain segment was not removed, but set to passive you need to relink only current documents, historical can remain unchanged.
If you deleted the chain segment, you need to re-link all the documents.
Step 3: Change Roles and User Groups
Changing the COA setup might not be enough. You might also need to change the Roles and User groups set up.
If there is a separate Role for the chain segment that you deleted or set to passive then you need to either remove or change it, since it has access to the Co-worker's Travel Expenses/Timesheets.
Roles
Go to Setup > Access Control > Roles.
Check if there is an existing Role for this chain segment and delete it.
If you don’t want to delete it, you can just remove access to the Co-worker's Travel Expenses/Timesheets.
User Groups
If you remove the Role, you must also remove the User Group it was linked to.
If you don’t remove the role, then you can leave the User Group unchanged.
To remove the user group:
Go to Setup > Access Control > User Groups.
Check if there is an existing role for this chain segment and delete it.
Don’t forget to add the ranks belonging to this user group to some other group, so they still have access to the Portal.
Example
To better understand how to change the existing Chain of Approval (COA) we will use the following example.
Imagine the following approval workflow for the Travel Expenses:
Crew members create and submit their Travel Expenses by linking the document to a specific vessel.
Musters from the corresponding vessels review and approve the documents.
Crew Coordinators in the office then perform the final approval.
We need to remove Masters from the approval workflow due to the change in the internal procedures.
To make the change smooth and without any issues, we need to:
Go to the Chain of Approval > Levels and re-link the regular Crew to the Crew Coordinators level.
Under the same Chain of Approval > Levels delete the Masters level or set it to passive.
Go to the Chain of Approval > Documents Status > Documents in the system and re-link the documents under the Master node to the Crew Coordinators node.
Got to the Access Control and remove the Role and User Group for Master.