This article is intended for buyers. If you're a supplier, check out our supplier help articles here.
This article will cover:
What are Stage Approvals?
Stage approvals provide request owners with the ability to seek approval on decisions regarding issuing and progressing a request. These approvals serve multiple purposes, such as:
Approval to issue the draft request to selected suppliers
Approval to reject a supplier
Approval to advance a supplier to the next stage
Approval to award the request to a supplier
All actions in the approval process are captured within the audit trail. It's essential to note that this mechanism does not enforce or automate; it facilitates the ability to capture approval from other stakeholders.
Where are Stage Approvals located?
In a draft request, locate Approvals alongside the Comments tab. For draft requests, ensure you've selected or invited suppliers to your request under the 'Suppliers' tab before opening Stage approvals.
In a live request, you can find the stage approvals section under the Suppliers tab:
In a draft request, you can find 'Approvals' alongside the comments tab:
Implementing Stage Approvals
To create a new Stage Approval:
Click + New approval, opening a pop-up window.
Use the dropdown boxes to select supplier(s) for review.
Complete the description field for detailed instructions.
Optionally, add supporting documents and click Next. Select team member(s) to approve the request with the Add approver.
Review and remove any approvers if needed and click Next
Review the approval request
Submit the approval request, triggering notifications to all approvers
✏️ Please Note: Super users can send approval requests but cannot be approvers unless added to the request team.
Approvers can see:
Description of the request
Associated stage
Approval status
Relevant suppliers
Approvers' names
Status of all approvers' responses
Responding to Stage Approvals
To respond to an approval, navigate to the request and under the Supplier tab click on the Respond button in the Stage approvals section. A pop-up box will display details of the approval request:
Choose between Approved or Rejected.
Leave an optional comment.
✏️ Please Note: You can update your response after submission.
After a Stage Approval response has been received
After reviewing and submitting responses, the owner can see the status of approvers, with responses updated accordingly.
✏️ Please Note: You can cancel approval requests, but you cannot undo submitted responses.
For any further queries, please use our live chat function or email: support@deepstreamtech.com