Accessing, sharing and withdrawing approval requests

Finding an approval you raised, bringing someone else in, and withdrawing one that no longer applies.

Finding an approval you raised, bringing someone else in, and withdrawing one that no longer applies.

Find an approval

Approvals live on the ticket that carries them, so the fastest route is the ticket itself. Open it and the request is visible with its current state: waiting, approved or rejected.

Share it with someone else

An approval can be shared, which is the answer to two common situations.

• The approver is away and somebody else has to look at it.
• A second opinion is wanted before a decision.

Sharing brings someone into the request rather than starting a new one, which keeps the trail in one place.

Withdraw it

1. Open the ticket.
2. Find the approval request.
3. Withdraw it.

The request closes without an outcome and the record shows it was withdrawn, which is honest and different from it being rejected.

When to withdraw

• The customer withdrew the request themselves.
• The facts changed and the question is now wrong.
• It turned out not to need approval after all.

Leaving a stale request open is worse than withdrawing it. Approvers stop trusting the queue when half of it is no longer relevant, and then the ones that matter wait too.

Chasing

An approval that has sat for days is a workflow problem rather than a personal one. If it happens regularly, the approver is either the wrong person or has too many, and that is worth raising rather than chasing each time.

See also

• Responding to an approval request as an agent
• Setting up an approval process between departments