Approval Actions
Purpose
When a document is waiting for your approval you record a decision. Approve and Reject are always offered; Quick Approve and Send back appear depending on the step and how the workflow was set up. This page explains what each action does, what happens next, and when to use it.
Prerequisites
- You are signed in to EisenVault One.
- You have an approval task assigned to you.
- The approval is still open and has not passed its due date.
The Four Actions at a Glance
| Action | What it does | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| Approve | Records your approval after you confirm the review checklist. Requires a note. | Sequential: the next approver receives the task. Parallel: the workflow waits until enough approvals are in. |
| Quick Approve | Records your approval immediately, skipping both the checklist and the note. | Same as Approve. |
| Reject | Records your rejection. | By default the whole workflow stops immediately. |
| Send back | Returns the request to one or more earlier approvers to look at again. | Those approvers revalidate, then the request comes back to you. |
Note: a note is required for every action except Quick Approve. Before you can Approve, Reject, or Send back, you must type a note explaining your decision — the box shows Add a note explaining your decision (required)… and those buttons stay disabled until you enter something.
Quick Approve is the exception. It is the no-ceremony path: it skips the checklist and the note alike, so you can approve in one click. If you do type a note, it is still recorded with the approval.
Whatever you enter is stored with the decision and shown in the approval timeline.
Approve
What is it?
Approve confirms that the document meets your requirements and the workflow should move forward.
How do I approve?
- Open the approval task from your dashboard, the bell notification, or the approvals list.
- Review the document, the request note, the priority, and the due date.
- Work through the Before you approve checklist:
- Document reviewed
- Attachments verified
- Required information present
- Type your note in the comment box.
- Click Approve.
- Confirm on the Approve this document? dialog.
What should I expect?
EisenVault One shows Approval recorded. Your task moves out of your pending list, and the approval timeline records your name, the time, and your note.
What happens to the workflow depends on the approval type:
- Sequential — the next approver in the order receives their task.
- Parallel — the workflow waits until the required number of approvals is reached. Other approvers may still have open tasks.
Quick Approve
What is it?
Quick Approve records your approval without making you tick the checklist items first.
Why would I use it?
Use it when you already know the document is fine — for example a routine document you have just reviewed elsewhere — and neither the checklist nor a written reason would add anything.
How do I use it?
- Click Quick Approve. No note is needed — the button is enabled straight away.
- Confirm on the Quick approve this document? dialog, which reads: Approve immediately without completing the checklist below. Your note is recorded with the approval.
You may still type a note first if you want one on the record; it is saved with the approval exactly as it would be for Approve.
What should I expect?
The workflow advances exactly as it would after Approve. What Quick Approve skips is the ceremony — the checklist and the required note.
Reject
What is it?
Reject records that the document is not acceptable.
How do I reject?
- Type a note explaining why you are rejecting. This is required.
- Click Reject.
- Confirm on the Reject this document? dialog.
What should I expect?
EisenVault One shows Rejection recorded.
By default, the entire workflow stops as soon as one approver rejects. Remaining approvers no longer need to act, and their tasks are marked Skipped / No longer required.
This behaviour is controlled by the Stop approval flow when any approver rejects setting on the approval step, which is switched on by default. If the workflow designer switched it off, the other approvers keep their tasks and the workflow carries on.
Send Back
What is it?
Send back returns the request to one or more approvers who acted before you, so they can look at it again. It is not a rejection — the request is expected to come back to you.
Why would I use it?
Use it when you cannot make a decision because something earlier in the chain needs rechecking. For example, an earlier approver approved a contract before the final figures were attached, and you need them to confirm the updated version before you sign off.
How do I send an approval back?
- Click Send back.
- The Send back to prior approvers dialog opens: Choose who should revalidate this request before it returns to you. You can select multiple approvers.
- Select one or more earlier steps. Each is listed as Step n — approver.
- Choose the Revalidation completion mode (explained below).
- Type a comment explaining why you are sending it back. This is required — the placeholder reads Explain why you are sending this approval back (required for send back)…
- Confirm on the Send this approval back? dialog.
Revalidation completion modes
| Mode | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Anyone | One approval is enough. The request returns to you as soon as any one of the selected approvers revalidates. |
| Everyone | All approvals are required. Every approver you selected must revalidate before the request returns to you. |
Important: Everyone is the default. If you do not change the mode, Everyone applies and every selected approver must revalidate. Choose Anyone if a single revalidation is enough.
What should I expect?
EisenVault One shows Approval sent back.
- Your own step stays open and shows Sent back.
- The selected approvers each receive a revalidation task and their step shows Revalidating.
- The workflow does not advance past your step while revalidation is in progress.
Revalidation
What is it?
Revalidation is the task you receive when a later approver sends a request back to you.
How do I revalidate?
- Open the task. It shows the note: This request was sent back to you for revalidation. Approve to return it to the initiator.
- Review the document and the sender's explanation of why it came back.
- Click Confirm revalidation.
What should I expect?
Once the revalidation requirement is satisfied — one approver under Anyone, or all of them under Everyone — the request returns to the approver who sent it back, and they can complete their own decision.
Approving More Than One Item at Once
If you have several approval tasks waiting, you can action them together from the approvals list:
- Tick Select all, or tick individual rows.
- Click Approve selected or Reject selected.
- Confirm on the Approve selected items? or Reject selected items? dialog.
EisenVault One reports how many decisions were recorded, and tells you if any could not be processed.
Note: Bulk actions cover Approve and Reject only. Send back must be done one approval at a time, because it needs a target step and a revalidation mode.
Approval Statuses
Each step in a workflow shows one of these statuses:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | Waiting for the approver to act |
| In review | The approver has opened the task |
| Waiting | The step has not started yet — an earlier step is still in progress |
| Approved | The approver approved |
| Rejected | The approver rejected |
| Sent back | The approver returned the request to an earlier step |
| Revalidating | This step was sent back and is being looked at again |
| Skipped / No longer required | The step is no longer needed, usually because the workflow stopped after a rejection |
Limitations and Important Notes
Important: an overdue approval cannot be completed. If the approval passes its due date, you can no longer act on it. EisenVault One shows This approval is past its due date and can no longer be completed. and refuses the decision. This is enforced by the server, so reopening the page or retrying will not help.
This only applies when a due date was set on the workflow. If the due date is Editable, the workflow creator or an administrator can extend it while the run is still going. If it is Locked, nobody can change it. See Workflow Builder.
- You can only send back to steps that came before yours. There is no way to push a request forward to a later approver.
- Send back needs a comment. This is enforced by the server, so it cannot be bypassed.
- A rejection normally ends the workflow unless the designer turned off Stop approval flow when any approver rejects.