Making Approval Decisions for Questionnaires in Process Projects

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to make an approval decision for a modular questionnaire in a process project.

About Approvals for Modular Questionnaires in Process Projects

Process projects include modular questionnaires submitted by the supplier or an internal recipient within your organization. A supplier can have multiple processes that use the same questionnaire. The questionnaire's setup determines whether it is reused for the same supplier in different processes.

When a modular questionnaire is set up to be reused, the same questionnaire project is reused across all processes that include it. Once you approve or deny the questionnaire, your current approval decision remains valid for all those processes until one of the following happens:

  • A process initiator requests an update when creating a new process that includes the questionnaire.
  • A process owner requests an update when renewing the current process.
  • The questionnaire is about to expire or has already expired.
  • The recipient chooses to update the questionnaire.

If a questionnaire is not set up for reuse, a new modular questionnaire project is created for each process that includes it, and you approve or deny each of these questionnaires independently.

New modular questionnaire projects follow an approval flow defined by your organization. Depending on the setup of the modular questionnaire, updates can follow the same approval flow, a different one, or be approved automatically.

When you're approving an update to a modular questionnaire or have received additional information, the approval task details page displays the answers to the current and previous versions for side-by-side comparison.

If the internal forms feature (SM-30222) is enabled in your site, modular questionnaire projects can include one or more internal forms in addition to the main supplier-submitted questionnaire. Approving or denying the key questionnaire is usually the final step in the workflow for the modular questionnaire project.

Note

When a questionnaire has a single active approval task, the process details page offers a convenient shortcut to the task's details through an action icon. Although anyone can see and use this shortcut, only approvers in the currently active approval node will have the Approve, Deny, and Request Additional Info options on the task details page.

How to Make Approval Decisions for Modular Questionnaires in Process Projects

If you're an approver for a modular questionnaire included in a process project, follow these steps to complete your assigned approval. Your approval decision may influence the process’s final approval, denial, or conditional approval.

Prerequisites

The process project feature (SM-16798) must be enabled in your site.

Business Scenario

NSM Global relies on category managers to approve modular questionnaires used in their standard supplier qualification process. Joe Ortiz has received notifications about two pending questionnaires. One supplier has submitted a new questionnaire as part of the initial qualification process, and another existing supplier has sent an update. Joe must review the responses, ensure they meet NSM Global's standards, and make approval decisions accordingly.

In this video, you’ll watch Joe make approval decisions for modular questionnaires in process projects.

Steps

  1. Open the approval task details page by performing one of the following actions:

    • Choose the link in the notification e-mail.
    • Navigate to the Qualifications (for qualification processes) or Processes detail area of the supplier's profile, then locate and view the process. Act on the approval task directly from the process details page if possible. Otherwise, view the questionnaire and act on the task from there.

  2. Review the questionnaire answers.

    Note

    If you're approving an update, choose Updated to display only the questions with updated answers. Choose All to display all answers.

  3. Optional: If you're approving an update and want to compare the current answers with versions of the questionnaire the recipient submitted before the previous version, choose a version number in the Previous Version column.

    Note

    The Previous Version column shows answers from the selected version. The Latest Version column continues to show answers from the current update.

  4. Perform one of the following actions:

    • To approve the questionnaire, choose Approve, enter an optional comment, and choose Approve.
    • To deny the questionnaire, choose Deny, enter an explanatory comment, and choose Deny.
    • To request additional information from the respondent, choose Request Additional Info, enter a comment explaining what information you want, and choose Request Additional Info.

Result

If you’re the final approver, the system updates the questionnaire’s project status to Approved or Denied and notifies the recipient of that status by e-mail. If you’re not the final approver, the project remains in Pending Approval status until someone else makes the final decision.

When you approve a questionnaire that allows updates, the system reopens it to enable the recipient to make changes. Any internal forms not linked to tasks also become editable. If you deny the questionnaire, the system closes the project, preventing further updates from the supplier or internal form editors.

Your approval decision can affect the processes that include the questionnaire in the following ways:

  • If decision-makers in your organization manually set the final process status, they evaluate the statuses of the process's modular questionnaires when making a status decision.
  • If the process type generates an automatic status decision, that decision is always based on the questionnaires' statuses.

If you requested additional information while approving an external questionnaire and enter a comment, the supplier sees your most recent comment when they revise their response.

Comments you or other approvers made during the approval process are visible on the questionnaire and approval task details pages. You can view these comments by choosing View next to the questionnaire or task name. The questionnaire details page displays all comments for the current phase, including those for the key questionnaire and any internal forms. Each task details page shows only the comments related to that specific task.

Approve a Modular Questionnaire in a Process Project

In this exercise, you’ll approve a modular questionnaire in a process project.

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