Requesting an Approval

This page covers creating an approval request, tracking it, and managing it through to completion.

Creating a request

From the Approvals list, click New Approval Request (the blue +). The form is one page, top to bottom:

The New Approval Request form.

Details

Field	Required?	Notes
Title	Yes	A short, clear name (max 255 characters).
Category	Recommended	What kind of approval this is. Pick the closest match; use Other if nothing fits.
Description	Optional	Context for the approvers (max 5000 characters).

Linked Record (optional)

Pick a Type (Project / Work Package / Purchase Order / Purchase Request), then search for the specific Record. Linking is optional, but it’s what shows approvers the full context of what they’re signing off.

Attachments (optional)

Drag in up to 10 files at a time (PDF, Word, Excel, CSV, PowerPoint, text). Each must be 25 MB or smaller. These become the request’s Files — the paperwork the approvers are being asked to sign off on.

ℹ️ Good to know: Files are only one of three places a document can live on an approval request, and they are the most tightly controlled of the three. See Files, Documents and the Final Document before you decide where something belongs.

Approvers

This is where you choose who decides. Add each approver from the search box — it lists both Internal staff and External contacts (you can narrow external contacts by company type or company). For an external approver you also set how many days their secure link stays valid (default 7, up to 30).

The Hierarchy Feature toggle controls the order:

Hierarchy Feature	Behaviour
On (default)	Give each approver a Level. COMS asks each level in turn, lowest first. Approvers on the same level are asked at the same time (concurrent).
Off	Approvers decide in sequence — just drag them into the order you want.

ℹ️ Good to know: Approvers vs. notification recipients. Approvers decide. The Additional Notification list (under Notifications) is a CC — those people are emailed the final outcome but don’t approve anything.

When it’s ready, click Send for Approval. The first level’s approvers are emailed immediately.

⚠️ Heads up: Category shows a red asterisk but the request will actually send without one.

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Tracking a request

Open any request to see its status. As the requester you see everything: the details and files, the linked record, and the Approval Chain — every approver, their level, and whether they’re Pending / Approved / Rejected, with their comments.

A request you created, mid‑approval.

• The header shows the overall status and an X / Y approvers approved counter.
• Next to each Pending approver is a Resend button — re‑send their notification (a fresh secure link for external approvers) if they’ve lost it.
• The Notification List card lets you add people to CC on the outcome — even after the request has completed.

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Files, Documents and the Final Document

A request can carry documents in three different places, and they are not interchangeable. Each one answers a different question: what was submitted, what is being referred to, and what was signed off. Picking the wrong one is the most common reason people find themselves unable to upload something later.

Where it lives	What it’s for	Who can add	When you can add	Versions?
Files (called Attachments on the form)	The paperwork the request is built on — what the approvers are actually signing off.	The requester only.	While creating, and while editing — but only until the first approver approves or rejects.	No
Documents tab (“Supporting Documents”)	Reference material that can still change while the request is in flight — a checklist, a clarification.	The requester, the approvers, and their active delegates.	Any time — including after the request has completed.	Yes
Final Document	The signed‑off record of the outcome. Normally the Approval Confirmation COMS generates itself.	The requester only.	Only once the request is Completed.	No

COMS spells the same split out on the request page itself — open the Documents tab and click How Supporting Documents work:

The Documents tab explains how it differs from Files and the Final Document.

Files — the original submission

Files are a snapshot of what was put in front of the approvers, so COMS deliberately stops them changing underneath a decision. As soon as any one approver approves or rejects, the Files are frozen — you can no longer add to them, and you can no longer remove them either. That applies to everyone, administrators included.

Once a decision exists, the Files list is locked and the uploader is replaced.

If you need to get another document in front of the approvers after that point, put it in the Documents tab. If the new document genuinely changes what is being approved, reset the request instead so everyone decides again on the correct paperwork.

ℹ️ Good to know: A request’s Files all have to live in one system. If a request already has files attached through BMS, COMS will refuse the upload and ask you to keep adding them in BMS — a BMS file is stored there, so it can only be downloaded or removed from the BMS approval page. Files added in COMS show as download links; BMS ones are plain text with a BMS file tag.

Documents — living reference material

The Documents tab at the bottom of the request is the flexible one. It is the only place that is open to the approvers as well as the requester (and to an approver’s active delegate), and the only place that keeps a version history — upload a newer version from a document’s menu to supersede the current one, and the earlier ones stay available under View All Versions.

Adding a document is allowed at any point in the request’s life, even after it has completed. What closes on completion is changing them: once the request is Completed, existing documents can no longer be edited, deleted or given a new version.

💡 Pro Tip: This is the right home for anything that might be superseded — checklists, extra specifications. Because it survives the Files freeze, it is also your escape hatch when an approver asks for one more piece of evidence mid‑chain.

Final Document — the signed‑off record

The Final Document card only appears once the request is Completed. In almost every case it fills itself in: COMS generates the Approval Confirmation PDF on completion and stores it here, tagged Permanent record — that copy can never be replaced or deleted by anyone. See When it completes.

You only need to upload here if there is a separate officially signed document (a countersigned contract, say) that should stand as the record instead. That upload is capped at 10 MB — lower than the 25 MB allowed for Files, so a large scan may need compressing first.

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Editing, resetting and withdrawing

• Edit — while nothing has been decided yet, you can change anything, including the approver list. Once any approver has approved or rejected, the request locks: the details and decided approvers are fixed, and you can only swap out approvers who are still pending.
• Withdraw — cancels the request (only before it’s Completed).

Resetting a locked request

Sometimes the lock is exactly the wrong outcome — the scope changed, the wrong record was linked, or the approvers were reviewing the wrong file. Reset is the way out: it clears the approval chain and reopens the whole request for editing, so the round can start again cleanly rather than the request being withdrawn and rebuilt from scratch.

It lives on the Edit page only. Open the request, choose Edit, and the amber locked‑for‑editing banner carries the Reset request button:

The Reset request button appears in the locked banner on the Edit page.

Confirming spells out what you are about to lose:

The reset confirmation.

What a reset does:

• The whole approval chain is cleared — every approval, every rejection, and every approver who was still waiting. The chain comes back empty, so you re‑add the approvers you need.
• The details, the approver list and the Files all become editable again, so you can correct whatever the lock was holding.
• The cleared rows are kept for audit — they leave the chain, but they are not erased from the record.
• Nothing else is touched: the Documents tab, Notes, the notification list and any existing Approval Confirmation all stay as they are.

When you’re done editing, Save Changes sends the request out again from the lowest level of the approver list you rebuilt.

⚠️ Heads up: A reset notifies nobody. Approvers whose decision was cleared are not told, and approvers who were still waiting lose their secure link without warning — nobody is asked again until you save the edited request with its new approver list. If someone had already approved, tell them why they are being asked a second time.

Who can reset:

Situation	Who can reset it
An internal‑only request, part‑approved or rejected	The person who created the request.
Any request with an external approver on it	An administrator only.
A request that has fully Completed	Nobody. Its Approval Confirmation is a permanent record of approvals a reset would erase, so a finished request can never be reopened — not even by an administrator.

ℹ️ Good to know: A reset is permanent and leaves a permanent mark. The Approval Chain carries a Reset on … by … note from then on, and the reset is recorded in the Audit Trail (in the request’s action menu) against the person who did it. There is no undo — cleared decisions cannot be put back from COMS.

After a reset, the Approval Chain permanently records who reset it and when.

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When it completes

Once every approver has approved, the request is Completed and COMS generates a permanent Approval Confirmation PDF — the official record of who approved, when, with their signatures. You (and any notification recipients) are emailed the outcome.

A completed request, with its permanent Approval Confirmation.

• The Final Document card holds the Approval Confirmation. You may also upload your own official signed document here if there is one — see Files, Documents and the Final Document.
• For a completed internal‑only request you can Download Report (a fresh PDF). When an external approver was involved, use the permanent Approval Confirmation instead, and Resend Confirmation to email it again.

ℹ️ Good to know: The on‑demand Download Report stamps each approver’s current signature, which could differ from the one used at decision time. The Approval Confirmation saved on completion is the point‑in‑time record — prefer it for anything official.