Searching for Documents in Workflow

Often users that are participants or observers in a workflow will want to locate those files that are going through review or approval activity in the records management system. They may need to see where in the process a given file is; to check if it has been approved, know who approved the version of the document and when.

Showing the Approval Status in the folder view
Adding the Approval Status field to a folder view allows the user to be able to tell at a glance the state of approval for all documents contained in that folder.

Note: This field can be added (or removed) in all views including search results, my FileHold, or any other list customizable with the users personal view preferences.

The Users Personal view Preferences are Accessible by:

• Right Clicking in the folder view columns toolbar.
• Select Add/Remove columns.
• Select Approval Status.
• Approval Status will be added to the information about the file seen in the toolbar.

OR 

A User Can:

• Select File > View Preferences menu option.
  
• Add Approval Status to the appropriate views.

Document Approval status as Metadata
By right clicking on the file in the document management system and selecting the Metadata and File Properties option users can view the metadata associated with the file including if this version of a document has been approved or not. Note: User can also access this information by selecting the metadata and file properties icon on the lower right corner of the FileHold Desktop Application.

Searching for a Document based on Approval Status:

• Invoke an Advanced Search by clicking on the gray triangle next to the search bar.
• Select File or Metadata > Approval Status.

Viewing the Sign off Sheet for the Current Version of a Document                                                                   

Selecting the sign-off sheet option from the right click menu associated with the file to view the sign-off sheet for the most recent version of a document. Here you see a listing of all users that either approved or rejected this version of the document, when they did it and if they signed-off on behalf of someone else.

Viewing the Sign off Sheet for Previous Version of a Document

Right click on the document name to view the list of all versions associated with the document. Select the versions you want to view the sign-off sheets for and click the Sign-Off Sheet button. A listing of all signing authorities will be shown for the versions selected.

Searching for Documents that have been Approved or are Pending Approval
Refining your search criteria to search for documents based on their approval status is easy using FileHold’s document management system search. From the Advanced Search screen the user can select the Approval Status metadata field for any document types (schema) as long as that schema has at least one workflow template associated with it that contains at least one approval activity. Use the Approval Status select box to choose whether or not the file being searched for is approved or rejected. The Approval Status field can be used in combination with any other metadata field criteria for searching.

Note: if the workflow has NOT been set to hide the file until approval is complete, the file will be able to be seen by all users with access to the document. If the workflow is set to hide the document until approval then it will not be able to be seen by users who are not participants in the workflow instance. All users will be able to see the file once it is approved and the workflow terminated.