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Admin Approval Walkthrough

How to approve items on the Web Dashboard - Admin Walkthrough

Updated over 2 months ago

With our Enterprise version of TripLog, you have access to the Approval Management process. This walkthrough will be for the Admin Workflow on the Web Dashboard.

Please review the Approval Process for details on the Status change and flow.

Approval Process - Web Dashboard

Video of Full Process (No Audio)

Notification of Submitted Items

If an admin is set as the Supervisor of the user in the Manage Users page they will receive a notification for any submitted trips, expense, or time entries with a note from the user.

Note on Editing and correcting records in the approval process, If a record is Submitted the user cannot modify the record but the Admin can update information in the record. This will be tracked in the Audit log. For a user to adjust a submitted record they would need to Unsubmit or the Admin would need to reject it for the item to be editable again. Once a record is Pay Scheduled or Uploaded to a Payroll integration it cannot be edited anymore.

Viewing Pending Items

Navigate to the Dashboard > Overview page under Approvals Pending.

Clicking REVIEW will navigate the user's trips, expense, or time entries that are currently in the submitted status.

Clicking the review will navigate you to the records to review.

View Larger

Manual Search for Submitted Items

You are able to search for pending or completed Approval items using the filter for the user and the Status of Submitted in the Quick Filters or the Advanced Filter.

Quick Filter View

Advanced Filter View

Approve or Reject Records

You can Approve or Reject the submitted entries. To change the status, select the records to update by checking the check box to the left of the record entry and then choosing the appropriate status change from the Approval Menu.

In the record depending on your permissions, you will see the options for Approve or Reject, some other permissions will add additional statuses including (Submit, Unsubmit, and Pay Schedule). We will focus on the Approve or Reject Status.

After selecting the records and Approving them a confirmation box will appear with an option to add a note. If Rejecting items it is recommended to let the user know what needs to be corrected. These can be done individually or in a batch. The user will receive a notification email that the records are Approved or Rejected with the note and a link to review the records.

Here is a quick example of pulling the Quick Filter to confirm the Approval is complete.

You can review the Audit Trail of an item by hovering on the Status of the record. You can click on that record to get a history of the steps the process has flowed through with timestamps. These records are also available in the reporting and exported records.

Hover on the Approval Status Icon

Click on the Approval Status Icon

Reporting Using the Status Filter

On the Reports Page, you are able to filter records by the current status.

Pay Scheduled

There is a final status for the records to be moved to Pay Scheduled, this is to indicate that the item has been reimbursed and can no longer be

Additional functionality is added for Admins with the Accountant permission.

Accountant Process

You can run reports for the currently Approved items in a time period

Once the reports load and are pulled to be sent to payroll, the Admin with the Accountant permission can Schedule Pay All indicating that the items are scheduled to be paid or have been paid to remove them from the Pending Approval to be paid. This will mark all items in the current filter with the status Pay Scheduled.

Admin Approval - TripLog App

Full Video (No Audio)

Access the Approval Management Tool

View Available Submissions

Click on a user to review pending submissions. You can review details of the trip, expense, or time entry to then Approve or Reject individually.

Approving a Single Entry

When reviewing a single entry you can approve or reject that entry. A notes field will pop up and you can complete it. This will be sent to the user with the notification email of the approval or rejection.

Updating Multiple Entries

You can choose to approve or reject multiple entries by clicking the individual boxes for multiple items to update or check the box at the very top left to select all. When approving or rejecting the entries the notes field will pop up and allow you to add a message to the notification.

Reviewing Past Entries

You can review entries for all users or individual users by Status and Time Period. This will allow you to see past approvals, pending submissions, or pending rejections that may need follow-up. Depending on the scope of the review it might be recommended to view these records on the web.

Approval Management Workflow

TripLog’s Approval Management web component provides employees the ability to submit trips and/or expenses and supervisors the ability to review/approve/reject. From there, the accountants can schedule for pay. Email notifications, workflow status, notes, and out-of-the-office features are intuitive and simple to use. To turn on the component for the organization, the administrator should go to the web account > Manage > Settings and select Approval Management > Save Settings.

Note: Regardless of Permission set a user cannot approve their own records.

The features and business rules include:

  1. Drivers will have the “Approval” or "Submission" menu option on the mobile apps, and the “Submit” and “Unsubmit” buttons on the web dashboard Trips page under Approval. Administrators/Managers will see “Approve” and “Reject” buttons. Accountants will also see “Schedule Pay” button in addition to all the other buttons. Go to web > Manage > User Settings to define user roles.

  2. From the web dashboard Trips page, users can select any trips and attempt to submit, approve, reject, or schedule pay. The system will check the conditions and determine whether the operation can proceed or will be ignored with a notice given to the user.

    • Status Check. Only the status flows from one box to another depicted on the Approval Workflow chart are allowed.

    • Permission Check. Only the user who has the ownership or is a supervisor of the owner can operate on a particular data entry.

  3. Once a trip is submitted, the driver cannot edit it. Unless it is rejected, then the user can edit and re-submit.

  4. An email will be sent to the supervisor or the trip owner, and cc’ed to the requestor, stating the approval status has been changed.

  5. A supervisor can set up the out-of-office start and end date on their web Profile page. In addition, they can set up an alternative approval delegate, instead of the default immediate supervisor.

  6. When the immediate supervisor is out-of-office, the next supervisor up the chain, or the alternative approval delegate, will receive the email.

  7. Supervisors can see a queue of submitted trips/expenses from their direct reports or their delegated direct reports on the web Dashboard page.

  8. Only administrators can be assigned as someone’s supervisor. An admin cannot be his/her own supervisor.

  9. If a supervisor is not assigned, a driver can still submit trips, thus changing the approval status, but no emails will be sent.

  10. Through the TripLog web API, the back-office can also change approval status.

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