Applying Formless Nominations and Approvals

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to introduce the formless (also known as instant) nominations and approvals features and the permissions needed to execute the approval.

Advantages of Formless Nominations and Approvals

Formless nominations and approvals have many advantages as listed below:

Designs plans directly on the Succession Org Chart that are an easier/faster process for users
Allows individual additions or removals from succession plans
Supports simultaneous changes to the same succession plan by different users
Creates a workflow that starts with the nominee instead of the incumbent
Supports pool-based nominations and successor ranking within readiness
Works with Position and Role-Person nomination methods
Records all new and changes to readiness and comments within the Nomination History

Caution

Formless Nominations replaced the older Form-Based Nomination method several years ago. The Form-Based option was removed from SuccessFactors in the 1H 2021 release.

Approvals Feature

If approvals are not enabled, all nominations take effect immediately and go straight to approved status. If approvals are enabled, new nominations (as well as removals and readiness changes) will be in a pending status until a user approves the change. The Approve Successor or Reject Successor options appear when a role with the approval permission accesses the Succession Org Chart and selects the dropdown of the nominee, as shown in the screenshot below:

Caution

If these features were not enabled during your implementation, you will need the assistance of your Professional Services partner or Customer Success.

A screenshot shows the 'pending' status next to the name of one successor. In another window, options to select Approve Successor or Reject Successor are under the same name.

Role-Based Permissions for Approvals

Once these features are properly configured in your system, make sure that the Succession Planner or designated approval role holds the correct permissions. To verify this information, navigate to Admin Center→Set User Permissions→Manage Permission Roles. Select the appropriate role, choose Edit, then Next. Select Succession Planners to view the Succession Approval Permission. Enable the permission by checking the box and choose Next. You will also need to select Save to complete this change.

Rules Applying to Nomination and Approval Permissions

If more than one person is set as an approver for a particular incumbent or position, only one approval (from any of the approvers) is required to approve the nomination or change.
Approvers will go to the Succession Org Chart to approve nominations. Pending nominations requiring approval will be displayed on the succession org chart nodes in a separate section below the approved nominees (if any).
Nominees in a pending state are only visible to users with succession planning permissions or succession approval permissions for that incumbent/position.
Users can be both planners and approvers. If a user has both permissions, the nominations they create take effect immediately and go straight to the "approved" status.
An approver has a scope of permissions to approve for positions when the position management method is used or incumbents when the role-person method is used.
If the approval process was enabled during succession planning activities and is then disabled in Provisioning, pending nominations or changes will be lost. Only approved nominations and changes will be retained.

Nomination Approval Emails

If you’re using the option to have nominees in a pending state until they are approved, you can set up the application to send nomination approval emails to those within a specific role, such as a Succession Planners role.

To receive nomination approval e-mails, do the following:

Enable e-mails to approvers notifying them of nominations requiring their approval. This is done in Provisioning by an implementation consultant.
- You may notify approvers once for each nomination, or repeatedly according to a schedule (until the nomination is approved or rejected).
E-mail content can be adjusted in the Succession Email Approver Notification template located under E-Mail Notification Template Settings.
- The "[PENDING_NOMINATIONS_LIST]" token must be preserved to include the list of pending nominations.

The Succession E-Mail Approver Notification Template is displayed.

Grant Approver Permissions, Nominate a Successor, and Approve Nominee

In this exercise, you will grant approver permissions, nominate a successor, and approve the nominee.

ExerciseStart Exercise

Task 1: Changing Approvers Role in RBP

Once the formless nomination approval workflows are enabled in Provisioning, you need to grant the permission to your approvers to approve the forms.

Steps

Connect to your instance as an administrator.
Use the Action Search to locate Manage Permission Roles.
Select your Succession Planner role and edit the permissions.
Select the Succession Planners User Permissions from the left.
Confirm the Succession Approval Permission is checked, and if not enable it. If you made a change select Save.
Since this permission requires a target to be set, confirm that the target is set to everyone. Select the Assignments tab, Edit, and check Step 3 for the target population.
Save your changes.

Task 2: Test Your Changes

It is now time to test the changes you have made to your instance from a manager’s perspective (without approval permissions) first, and then from a succession planner perspective (with approval permissions).

Manager View

The managers do not have permission to approve nominations, but they can nominate. You will test this behavior in that first part.

Connect/proxy as manager (Vic Stokes is a Manager).
From the SOC, nominate a successor to a position. You can use Vic Stokes' SOC.
You should now see a nomination pending to be approved in the successors list.

Succession Planner View

You have granted the permission to the succession planners to approve nominations. Test the approval permissions by following these steps:

Connect/proxy as a succession planner (Admin Emily Clark is a Succession Planner). From the SOC, go to the position to which you just added a pending nomination.
Approve the pending nomination.

Nominating as an Approver

As an approver, the nominations created do not need to be approved. Test this behavior:

Login as an administrator. The admin user also has the Succession Approval permissions.
From the SOC, navigate to a position.
Nominate a successor for that position.
The nomination displays in the named successors lists, without having to be approved.

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