Approval flow templates

Using templates for common approval flows can streamline the approval flow process and might provide greater consistency and predictability of approval durations.

For example, you want to have both the Marketing and Legal departments approve promotional material before it is published. You can create a two-step approval process with the auto-close option. In step one, the material is approved by the Marketing department. The Legal department is automatically notified that step one has completed successfully. The Legal department approves the material, and the approval flow closes automatically.

System administrators create the approval flow templates. The template defines the following information:

• The number of steps
• The duration of each step
• The approvals within each step
• Whether the review item version is locked during the approval cycle

  Locking the version prevents reviewers from adding annotations within the version of the creative item in the Markup tool.

These properties serve as default settings only and can be edited when the template is applied to a review item in a Review Area. When you apply an approval flow template, you cannot add or delete steps or approvals, but you can disable any unnecessary approvals or steps.