Overview
Approvals is COMS’s general sign‑off system. It lets someone send a record — a Sole‑Source Justification, a Bidder List, a purchase, a project closure, and so on — to one or more people to formally approve or reject, with the decisions, comments and signatures captured as a permanent record.
ℹ️ Good to know: This is a separate module from Expense approvals. Expense claims have their own approval chain (see the Expense Management guide); this guide is about the general /approvals area you reach from Approvals in the sidebar.
Who does what
- The requester creates a request, attaches supporting files, and chooses who must approve.
- Internal approvers (Conexus staff) review and decide inside COMS.
- External approvers (customer contacts) review and decide on the customer portal via a secure link.
What can be sent for approval
A request always has a category (SSJ, Bidder List, Purchase Order, Travel, Vacation, Hiring… — a long, admin‑managed list) and can optionally be linked to a record so approvers see exactly what they’re signing off. The four linkable record types:
| Type | Typical use |
|---|---|
| Project | Project‑level sign‑offs (e.g. closure, technical completion). |
| Work Package | Work‑package approvals. |
| Purchase Order | PO approvals. |
| Purchase Request | Procurement sign‑offs — Sole‑Source Justifications and Bidder Lists are the common ones. |
ℹ️ Good to know: When the linked record is a Purchase Request with a Sole‑Source Justification or Bidder List, the approval page shows the full details of that record (scope, QA requirements, reasons, the justified bidder and quote) so approvers have everything in front of them.
The lifecycle
Every request moves through a simple set of statuses:
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Pending | At least one approver still has to decide. |
| Completed | Everyone approved. A permanent Approval Confirmation PDF is generated. (Final.) |
| Rejected | Someone rejected it — that ends the request. (Final.) |
A single rejection ends the whole request; every approver must approve for it to complete.
Finding your approvals
Open Approvals from the sidebar. The list is split into tabs:
- Mine — requests you created.
- Awaiting Me — requests waiting for your decision.
- I’ve Acted On — requests you’ve already approved or rejected.
- All — only for administrators (needs the view‑all permission).
Each row shows the category, the linked record, an approved / total progress bar, the overall status, who requested it, and (for completed internal‑only requests) a report download.
The Approvals list, showing categories, progress and status.
💡 Pro Tip: Use the Filters bar to narrow by category, record type, status, whether an external approver is involved, or a date range — handy once you have a lot of history.
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