Send a Document for Approval
Last updated: Apr 17, 2026
Who can complete this task?
Veeva Quality Basics: Document Workspace User, Non-GxP Document User
Send a Document for Approval
To send a Draft or Ready for Approval document for approval:
Navigate to Document Workspace > Working Library and open the document you want to send for approval.
Select Send for Approval from the Workflow menu.
Select the Approvers and enter optional instructions for the Approvers.
Select the QA Approvers and enter optional instructions for the QA approvers.
Enter an Approval Due Date for completion of the approval and click Start. The document status changes to In Approval and assigns a Document Approval task to the selected Approvers.
Include External Approver(s)
You can include external contacts, like suppliers, as document approvers in your Vault.
To do this, a Vault or Quality Admin must first specify the contact as a Document Approver.
Then to include external approver(s) and send the document for approval:
Navigate to Document Workspace > Working Library and open the document you want to send for approval.
Click Edit ().
In the External Approval section, set External Approval? to Yes and click Save.
Select Send for Approval from the Workflow menu.
Specify the Approver Organization and External Approver(s).
Note The only people available to select from are the people added as contacts for the selected organization and designated as document approvers.Select the Approvers and enter optional instructions for the Approvers.
Select the QA Approvers and enter optional instructions for the QA approvers.
Enter an Approval Due Date for completion of the approval and click Start.
The document status changes to In Approval and assigns a Document Approval task to the selected Approvers. The document is sent to the external and internal approvers simultaneously and they can work on their approvals in parallel.
Note
Vault will automatically create an account for external user(s) in the Active state.
Once all approvers and QA approvers have provided their approval, the Vault account for the external user will automatically be set to Inactive.
If they are later added as an approver to another document, their account will be reativated until that document is approved.
Training Credit for Approvers
Note
If a document will be trained on, Approvers and QA Approvers of the document will automatically receive training credit if it is in their matrix since they will have thoroughly reviewed the document during the approval process. If you also want to give the document owner credit for training on the document, add them as an approver.
When an approver receives training credit, a Training Assignment record will be created in the system in a Completed state. You can see the Completion Source of Document Participant Credit on the Training Assignments page.
When an approver receives training credit, a Training Assignment record will be created in the system in a Completed state. You can see the Completion Source of Document Participant Credit on the Training Assignments page.