Document External Approval

Starting in 26R1, Suppliers can now approve documents in your Vault. You can send documents following the Draft to Approved lifecycle to Suppliers for External Approval.

Allow an External Organization Contact to Approve Documents

Vault Admins and Quality Admins can manage external approvers as Contacts for an External Organization.

To allow a contact for an external organization to approve documents:

  1. Navigate to Quality Admin > Quality Data > Organizations and select an External Organization.
  2. Open the Contacts section and create a new contact or edit an existing contact.
  3. If creating a new contact, enter the First Name, Last Name, and Email. Enter any other optional information.
  4. Select Document Approver from the Allow As dropdown.
  5. When Document Approver is selected, the Language, Locale, and Timezone fields become required. Enter those details.
  6. Click Save.

Send a Document for External Approval

To send a document for external approval:

  1. Open the Draft to Approved document.

  2. Click Edit ().

  3. Open the External Approval section and select Yes for External Approval?.

  4. Click Save.

  5. Select Send for Approval from the Workflow menu.

  6. Select the Approver Organization.

  7. Select one or more External Approver(s).

    Note Only people who have been added as Contacts for the External Organization and set to be allowed to Approve Documents will be available to select. If you do not see the external person you want to approve the document, contact your Vault Admin or Quality Admin to get them added.

  8. Select one or more Approver(s) and QA Approvers.

  9. Enter the Approval Due Date and click Start.

User Accounts for External Approvers

When a document is sent for approval, if an external approver is selected, Vault will automatically create a Vault user account for them in the Active state.

Screenshot step 1

Once all approvers and QA approvers have provided their approval, the Vault account for the external user will automatically be inactivated.

Screenshot step 1

How to Use Document External Approval

Watch this video (3 min) to learn how to manage external approvers and send documents for external approval after the 26R1 release.

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