Employee Advocacy Topic Approvals for Admin & Managers

The Topics by Approval process helps Employee Advocacy admins and managers streamline approvals  to enhance efficiency and ensure content quality.

This article contains the following sections:

• Important key terms & concepts
• Configurations needed
• How it works
  • Managing Topic Approver assignments
  • Managing Topic Approver notifications
  • Approvals for Admins
  • Approvals for Managers
• FAQs

Important key terms & concepts

• “Contributed story” or “Contribution”: A Contributor (or Manager in specific cases) submits a story for approval. All stories contributed by Contributors need approval.
• “Approver”: AKA: Topic Manager. This is a user who can review and approve/reject a contributed story (owners, admins‌ and managers).
  • Admins are super-users. They don't need assignments to approve stories for any topics.
  • Managers may need to be assigned to a topic to approve a story for the topic depending on which type of topic it is (see next item).
• Topic Types: "Assigned Approver Topic" vs "All Approver Topic"
  
  • All Approver Topic: Any manager can approve stories for this topic.
  • Assigned Approver Topic: Only assigned managers can approve stories for this topic.

Configurations needed

Before you get started, ensure you have the following configured:

• Contributors or Managers for contributions
• Managers (as assigned) and Admins to review stories for approval
• Admins to assign approvers to topics

How it works

Managing Topic Approver assignments

While managers can create and edit topics, only Admins cn assign approvers to a topic. 

To manager appovers for a topic:

1. Click the Approvers tab on the Create or Edit Topics modal.

      2. Choose All Approvers or Assigned Approvers. (All Approvers is the default.)

      3. If you choose Assigned Approver Topic, you can assign up to 20 admins or managers to the topic by clicking their names.

      4. After assigning approvers, you can see who you assigned to the topic and remove them by clicking on them again.

      5. Click Save to save your settings.

Managing Topic Approver notifications

When a story is contributed, there are a few possibilities for notifications:

1. If a story is submitted to only Assigned Approver Topics, then only the approvers assigned to the topic get email notifications.
2. If a story is submitted to only All Approver Topics, then all admins and managers get email notifications.
3. If a story is submitted to both Assigned Approver Topics and All Approver Topics, then only approvers assigned to the Assigned Approver Topics get notifications.

The Approval for Contributed Stories setting enables a manager or admin to turn off their email notifications when a story has been contributed to only All Approver Topics. By default, this setting is ON for every Manager, Admin and Owner. If you want to only be notified when a story is contributed to topics you're assigned to, you can turn this setting off. 

Approvals for Admins

Notifications

By default, Admin don't receive notifications when stories are submitted to Assigned Approver Topics. If you would like an Admin to receive notifications in this situation, you can add them to the approvers list for the topic. Alternatively, if an admin receives notifications for All Approver Topics and they don't want to receive those notifications, they can toggle off the Approval for Contributed Stories setting.

"Needs Approval" feed

As an Admin, when you navigate to the "Needs Approval" feed, you can see all contributed stories currently awaiting approval. You can see all stories submitted to any topic in this feed.

To further narrow down the list of stories you see, you can use the Topics filter on the top right of the feed to filter stories by the individual topics they were submitted to.

Story Review and options

To review a story, click on the story tile in the list. This will take you to the story preview. Here you can review the full story and you'll have a few options to proceed: you can Quick Approve, Quick Reject‌ or edit the story.

Quick Approve or Quick Reject

Managers can review and approve/reject the story directly from the story preview.

Quick Approve: You can approve the story for all topics you’re assigned to approve. It's a faster method to approve the story, but you can't make any changes to the story before approval.

Quick Reject: You can reject the story for all topics that you’re assigned to approve. Like Quick Approving, it's a faster method of rejecting, but you'll be rejecting the story for all topics that you are assigned to approve.

If there are topics associated with the submission that you’re not assigned to approve, the story remains pending for those topics until an approver with the relevant assignments approves/rejects the story for the remaining topics.

Edit story during review: To make edits to the story before approval or only approve/reject the story for some of the topics, click Edit. This takes you to the full story approval modal. You can change the story elements - from the title, to the message idea, to the active dates, etc. At the bottom of the modal, you'll see the Story Settings.

You can remove topics from a story before approving. The topics in the Topics field indicate the topics that are currently attached to the story. If you remove a topic and then approve the story, that topic won't be included in the published story. As an admin, if you add a topic, the story will be approved for all topics present in the topics field, including the newly added topic.

After making your changes, click Approve Story, Reject or Save as Draft.

Stories saved as drafts remain as "pending" in the My Contributions page for Contributors or Managers. The story isn't marked as approved until the story is published.

Rejection notes: When rejecting a story, you can add a rejection note to provide context to the contributor as to why the story is being rejected. Below the text box, you can see the list of topics for which the story is being rejected. 

Approvals for Managers

If managers create a story for an Assigned Approver Topic that they aren't assigned to, then the story is submitted for review as a contribution for that topic specifically. Any other topics submitted with the story won't require approval, and the story will be published for those topics automatically. Managers  have a My Contributions page that'll list any story they have created that still requires approval.

"Needs Approval" feed

As a manager, when you navigate to your "Needs Approval" feed, you can see all contributed stories awaiting approval. The system filters this feed automatically to show only the stories that you have access to approve.

To filter stories even further,  use the Topics filter on the top right of the feed to filter stories by individual topics stories were submitted to.

To review a story, click on the story tile in the list. This takes you to the story preview. Here you can review the full story and you can Quick Approve, Quick Reject‌ or edit the story.

Quick Approve or Quick Reject: You can review and approve/reject the story directly from the story preview. 

Quick Approve: Approve the story for all topics that you are assigned to approve. It's a faster method to approve the story, but you can't make any changes to the story before approval.

Quick Reject: Reject the story for all topics that you are assigned to approve. It's a faster method of rejecting, but you'll be rejecting the story for all topics that you are assigned to approve.

If there are topics associated with the submission that you aren't assigned to approve for, the story remains pending for those topics until an approver with the relevant assignments approves/rejects the story for the remaining topics.

Edit Story During Review: To make edits to the story before approval or only approve/reject the story for some of the topics, click Edit. This takes you to the full story approval modal. You can make any changes to the story from the title, to the message idea, to the active dates, etc. At the bottom of the modal, you'll see the Story Settings.

Here, you can add or remove topics. The topics present in the topics field indicate which topics you are reviewing the story for.

If you are a manager who can approve for all submitted topics and you remove a topic and then approve the story, that topic won't be included in the published story. If you don't have access to provide approval for a submitted topic, that topic will be disabled in the topic list and you won't be able to remove it. In the case that you are assigned to approve a story for some topics and not others, upon approving the story, it'll be published for the topics you're assigned to and remain in pending for the topics you aren't.

Here are some examples of the above scenarios:

1. Let’s say you're assigned to approve stories for Topics A, B‌ and C. If a story is submitted to those topics and you remove Topic B, then the story will be published under Topics A and C and not Topic B. The story will essentially be removed from Topic B.
2. In another example, let’s say you only are assigned to topics A and B and you aren't assigned to Topic C. If a story is submitted to Topics A, B‌ and C, when you approve the story it'll be published for Topics A and B but will remain in Pending for Topic C. A different approver who does have an assignment to Topic C will have to approve or reject the story for that topic.

As a manager, if you add a topic to which you are assigned to the topics field, the story will be approved for all topics present, including the newly added topic. However, if you add a topic that you aren't assigned to approve, the story will still need to be approved for that newly added topic by another approver with an assignment to approve for that topic.

After making any desired changes to the story, click Approve Story, Reject‌ or Save as Draft.

Rejection notes: When rejecting a story, you can add a rejection note to provide context to the contributor as to why the story is being rejected. Below the text box, you can see the list of topics for which the story is being rejected.

FAQs

Do I have to assign approvers to a topic? Can I just have all managers and admins be able to approve everything?
You don't need to assign approvers to a topic if you don't want​ to. You can enable all managers and admins to approve any story for any topic. If you don’t need to restrict which users can approve certain topics, you don't have to use this feature.

Can I turn off notifications via the “Approval for Contributed Stories” setting for topics I'm assigned to in addition to All Approver Topics?

No, you can’t turn off notifications for any Assigned Approver Topics that you are assigned to using the personal setting. To stop getting notifications for the topic(s), you need to be removed from the Approver list for the topic(s).

Why can I create a topic but can't assign approvers?

Check your role. Only Admins and Owners can assign approvers to a topic.

I only wanted to reject a story for some topics and approve for others but the story disappeared after I rejected it?

When rejecting a story, even if you remove the topic, it still rejects for that topic. If you plan to approve a story for some topics and reject for others, approve the story first, then reject it.

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