Workflow on a Folio Template, enables you to take any Folio record through a number of stages, with approvals required to move from one Stage to the next.
Setting up a Workflow
To set up a Workflow, go to the Admin Gearwheel, select Folio Templates and then select the relevant Template that you would like to set up or change Workflow for.
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Click on the Workflow tab
Here you will see a list of Stages on the left side, with the currently selected stage's approval rules on the right side:
If you want to edit a stage or its approval rules select the stage you want on the left side, then on the right select Edit:
This will give you an editable version of the stages details:
Note: A stages approval rules cannot be edited while there is a Folio in that template that is pending approval, meaning that you cannot change any of the approval rules for a stage until the pending Folios are either approved or rejected.
However you can still remove or update the approvers in a stage at any time or delete an approval bracket which is not applied to any folio currently sitting in an approval request by clicking on the ellipsis at the end of the approvals row:
You can change the stages name or give it a Description:
Approval Rules
The Approval rules control who must approve the Folio before it can exit the stage.
The types of approvals you can have are:
No Approval Required
The Folio will not require any approvals to move to the next stage.
Stage Approvers
The approval rules will be the same for all Folio records to move to the next stage.
Based on Business Units
The approval rules to move to the next stage will be based on one or more Business Units that are selected in the Business Units field.
If the Folio record has more that one Business Unit selected then the approvers rules of all those Business Unit Approval Brackets will apply.
Based on $ Bracket
This feature is particularly useful with Contract Management in Folio.
The approval rules to move to the next stage will be based on based on the Built-in Contract Value field. Folio enables you to specify Approval Brackets based on $ value ranges. For example if the contract is between $5,000 and $100,000, $100,001 and $200,000 and $200,001 and above each of approval brackets can have their own approvers
Based on Fields
The approval rules to move to the next stage can be based on one or more Single, Multi or Hierarchy fields. You can now create approval brackets using combinations of these fields.
Approval Brackets based on one field
In the example below the approval brackets are based on the field Complaint Type which has two answers Internal and External. Each answer in the field has been made an approval bracket. All internal complaints will be approved by Barry Wong. All external complaints will be approved by Christine Furguson.
All other field answers is a mandatory fallback approval bracket. This bracket is the catch all for any answers that haven't been made into approval brackets or any new answers are added after the approval rules are set up and an approval bracket was not set up for them inadvertently.
When the Approval Brackets are based on just one field, if the user selects more than one answer (usually with a multi select), the approval rules for both answers will apply. In the above example if the user selected Internal and External then both Barry Wong and Christine Ferguson would need to approve.
See the table below for an example of who will be the approvers based on the answers on the record
| Complaint Type | Approver |
| Internal | Barry Wong |
| External | Christine Ferguson |
| Internal, External | Barry Wong, Christine Ferguson |
| Other Please Specify | Nick Maslen |
| Internal, Other Please Specify | Nick Maslen, Barry Wong |
Approval brackets based on multiple fields
You may also set up more complex approval rules with approval brackets based on the answers from multiple fields. To set this up, select the fields you would like to use for the approval in the Fields dropdown.
For example On an Incident form you may want to base the approvals on a combination of Office Location and Incident Severity.
You may now set up the approval brackets based on combinations of answers in Office Location and Incident Severity.
Rules for how Approvals with Multiple Fields works
- Answers selected on the Folio record must match approval brackets exactly. When a user selects ‘ The Loft, Darlinghurst’ and High, the approver will be Finn Bishop or Caleb Johnson as per the rules above.
- If the Folio record meets the approval rules for more than one approval bracket then all the brackets that match will apply. In the example, below where the user has selected ‘The Green Room, Surry Hills’ and ‘The Loft, Darlinghurst’ and High. The approval bracket, The Green Room, Surry Hills AND High and The Loft, Darlighhurst AND High both match so the approvers of these two brackets will apply.
- When any answer selected does not match an approval bracket, the All other field answers fallback will apply. For example,
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Note - you cannot leave any of the field answers blank, so if you want all high severity incidents to go to one user then you will need to select all office locations in the first field and then set high in the severity field.
Note: Look up based single select and multi select fields are not supported by this feature and the field can be used regardless of the fields visibility
Person Responsible Mandatory Approval
The approval required to move to the next stage will require the Folios Persons Responsible to approve the Folio.
Requester Selects from All Users
This approval rule allows the user submitting the folio for approval to select the approvers from a pool of all users. In configuring this approval rule, you have the flexibility to either specify the number of required approvers or opt for the 'Requester Selects Number Of Approvers' option.
Please Note: This approval rule is not applicable for Public Links, and you cannot establish multiple approval brackets when using the 'Requester Selects from All Users' approval rule.
Approval Rules
For the bracketed approval types (Business Unit, Contract Value or Field) there are additional Approval Rules you can select for each bracket.
One to approve - only one of the approvers selected needs to approve the stage transition.
All to approve - all of the selected approvers need to approve the stage transition.
Custom approval - allows the person submitting the Folio for approval to select the number of approvers that will be required to move the Folio to the next stage.
You can also use the Requester Selects Approvers, This allows the user submitting the folio for approval to select who from the approvers pool should be the approvers for the current approval. (For example in the below screenshot if they only select Declan and Elizabeth than for this approval either Declan or Elizabeth will need to approve the Folio)
Note: This is not available in the first stage if the Public Link is active. You are able to use it with the Create link being active which you can read more about here
Selecting this option also reveals two additional options.
Requester can override Approval - The Requester will be able Override the need for any approval and directly move the Folio to the next stage if they need to.
Requester selects number of approvers - The Requester can select as many approvers as they choose from the pool of approvers.
Please note - if the Folio template uses a Public Link, then the first stage will not give any of the Requester custom options.
You can also select the option for Person Responsible Mandatory Approval - This option means that when the Folio is submitted for approval in that stage, the Person Responsible is made an approver, as well as any other approvers that have been set up for that stage. This also means that if the Person Responsible for that particular Folio changes then the approver will change to be the new Person(s) Responsible instead:
Auto Submit for Approval
After deciding who will be the approvers for the stage you then have the option for "Automatically submit for approval when the folio enters this stage".
This means that when the Folio enters this stage it will be submitted for approval automatically, without a user having to click the Submit for Approval button:
Stages that have been set up to Automatically submit for approval will be marked with a plane icon:
Note that in a public link template the first stage will auto-submit by default.
Move to Stage
The move to stage option lets you setup which stage the Folio will go to after the current stage. By default it will always go into the next stage, but if your workflow requires it then you set it up so that after it is approved to leave the current stage it moves to a different stage further down the workflow rather than the next one.
Please Note: A User will still be able to make the Folio move back to any of the previous stages of the workflow, meaning if it avoided a certain stage while going down a user would be able to manually move it back into that stage.
For example on this complaint form in the incident stage i have it setup so that only Complaints with a High severity go to review, while the rest of them go straight to triage.
Approval Notifications
There are two options for the Approval Notifications on your Workflow stages.
Send Reminder Notification to Approver
This lets you decide if you want a reminder email sent to the approver(s) on a regular basis while the folio is waiting for their approval
If not approved escalate to
If the folio is not approved after a certain number of Grace Days this option lets you escalate the approver to the Person Responsible or a Designated Escalation User
Once the grace days has elapsed the escalation users will then be notified daily in the escalations section of their daily digest about the Folio approval being overdue until the approval is completed.
Once you have finished setting up your approval stages click on Update to save them.
Adding a New Stage
You can add a stage to the template by clicking on +New Stage:
You will be asked to give a stage name, then hit Create. The stage will be added as the last in the list, but you can rearrange the stage order by clicking on the double ellipses and dragging the stage where you want:
Note: Stages can only be added, removed or rearranged while there are no folios in this template currently pending approval. If there are then the approval(s) will need to be processed first.
When you have finished setting up your workflow you can export it to a PDF by clicking on the Export to PDF button: