What Happens When an Approval Action is Enforced?

When a user performs an operation that triggers an approval policy, CentraSite initiates an approval workflow and submits the user's request to the designated group of approvers. Approvers receive the approval request in their details page in CentraSite Business UI. Approvers whose user account includes a valid e-mail address also receive an email message informing them that a request is awaiting their approval. You can configure an approval action to send an email notification to other specified users, too.

Note:

To use the email options provided by this action, CentraSite must have a connection to an SMTP email server. For instructions on how to configure CentraSite's connection to an email server, see the CentraSite Administrator’s Guide .

CentraSite does not execute the user's requested operation until it obtains the necessary approvals. If an approver rejects the request, CentraSite notifies the requestor and immediately exits the policy. It does not perform the user's requested operation nor does it execute any remaining actions in the approval policy.

Using the details page in CentraSite Business UI, users can view the status of the requests that they have submitted for approval. Approvers also use the details page to review and authorize requests that require their approval.

For information about checking the status of requests that you have submitted for approval, see Reviewing Requests that You Have Submitted for Approval.

When the user who submits a request is also an authorized approver for the requested operation, the request is auto-approved. (In other words, the requestor's approval is granted implicitly.)

The way in which a request is handled after it is auto-approved depends on whether the approval workflow is configured to execute in Anyone or Everyone mode.

In Anyone mode, an auto-approval completes the approval process. Such requests do not formally initiate an approval workflow, however, they do appear in the Approval History log (the log will indicate that the request was auto-approved).

In Everyone mode, the requestor's approval is registered and then the request is submitted to the remaining approvers in the approval group.

Note:

The auto-approval process also occurs when an approval action is invoked and all of its specified approver groups are empty or all users in the specified groups are inactive.