This article explains how an ISSS office can set an approval workflow for a scholar sponsorship request. This process can be helpful if approval from HR or Dean is required before a request can be processed.
- Getting Started
- To Add a New Approval Workflow
- To Edit or Remove an Existing Workflow
- Important Notes about Creating and Editing
- What will the Approver see?
Getting Started
To create a workflow, navigate to Scholar Admin > Approval Workflows. If any workflows exist, they will be separated into two sections - Workflows and Inactive Workflows.
Clicking on the collapsed section will expand and display any existing workflows.
To Add a New Approval Workflow
Adding a new approval workflow can be done by clicking the + button in the lower right corner of the screen. A Workflow window will appear with three steps to complete. Begin by giving the workflow a descriptive title. In the lower section of the window, there are three steps that must define in order to define how the workflow will behave.
Step 1 - The IF statement
The first step in the approval workflow is to indicate what Form this workflow will operate off of. Options include: Sponsorship Request, H-1B Application, H-1B Extension, J-1 Application, or J-1 Request. In this example, we will set up an approval workflow for a J-1 Application.
- Sponsorship Request: triggers the workflow action as soon as the Departmental Admin makes the initial New Sponsorship Request. The sponsorship request will be locked pending approval for all parties (including ISSS). Once approved by the approver, the request will unlock for processing and editing.
- H-1B Application: triggers the workflow once the ISSS admin has determined that a Sponsorship Request will be processed as an H-1B applicant. The application will be locked pending approval. Once approved by the approver, the request will unlock for processing and editing.
- H-1B Extension: option triggers the workflow once the ISSS admin has determined that the case should be processed as an extension application. Again, the request will be locked pending approval. Once approved by the approver, the request will unlock for processing and editing.
- J-1 Application: triggers the workflow once the ISSS admin has determined that a Sponsorship Request will be processed as a J-1 applicant. The application will be locked pending approval. Once approved by the approver, the request will unlock for processing and editing.
- J-1 Request: will trigger a workflow at the point that the ISSS Admin determines that a Sponsorship Request will be processed as a J-1 applicant. The application will be locked pending approval. Once approved by the approver, the request will unlock for processing and editing.
Next, indicate what department will be identified in this workflow action. The departments listed in the drop-down field are directly related to the departments listed in Scholar Admin > Staff Management > Groups.
Multiple departments can be selected as well as all departments by clicking the "Select All" option. Once all three of these fields are completed, click (2) Approve by.
Step 2 - The Approver
In this step, the ISSS Admin is defining who must approve an application before a J-1 application can continue. In this step, the ISSS Admin has the option of a Simple or Sequential approver process.
In a simple process, the ISSS Admin can define either a single individual or a group of individuals (again driven off the Staff Management > Group settings). Sequential will allow the ISSS Admin to also stack these on top of one another. For example, in this J-1 workflow, once a sponsorship request has been selected to be processed as J-1, the Dean of Chemistry (Mona Agarwal) will be notified for approval. Once Mona approves, a request will be sent to Casey Windhorst who works in Chemistry as the HR representative for approval.
To move to the next step, click (3) Then Notify.
Step 3 - Notification
Finally, the ISSS Admin has the opportunity to define a notification or not. Once defined, the person listed will be notified of the processing approval once the final Approver has completed their approval steps.
Be sure to click the Create Workflow button in the lower right corner in order to save the workflow.
To Edit or Remove an Existing Workflow
Perhaps changes need to be made to existing workflows - personnel changes or perhaps additional steps should be completed. This can be done quite easily by editing an existing workflow setup. Simply click on the card for the workflow the ISSS Admin would like to edit.
The ISSS Admin will be presented with a screen very similar to when creating a new workflow, but with the historical pathway defined.
The ISSS Admin is able to make any changes here they wish. Just be sure to click Update Workflow before exiting the screen.
To delete a workflow, click on the trashcan icon located in the upper-right corner of the workflow that is to be deleted. If the workflow would like to be kept, but not have it live, click on the Active switch to make the workflow inactive.
Important Notes about Creating and Editing
Duplicate workflows will not be allowed to be created. For example, if a J-1 Chemistry workflow has already been created, the ISSS Admin will be prompted to go to the original workflow and edit as to avoid duplicates. A way to do this would be to use a sequential approval process rather than single and/or adding multiple notifications rather than creating three to four J-1 Chemistry Workflows.
This also means that upon editing a workflow, if it creates a duplicate, the edit will not save and the ISSS Admin will be reverted back to the original workflow to edit.
What will the Approver see?
Once the Approver workflow has been created and then triggered by the appropriate application action, the Approver will be sent an email containing a link to the approval request. Upon clicking the link, the Approver will see vital information regarding the application.
The Approver will see two action buttons - Approve and Deny.
- Approval will trigger the next step in the workflow process - whether that is another Approver or a Notification.
- Denial of a request will send the scholar's information to the Ineligible tab on the departmental and ISSS admin's Dashboards.
Note: If an approver denies, the Scholar card stays locked. A notification will be sent back to ISSS Admin and the ISSS Admin needs to make a decision what to do next. To edit, the ISSS would need to withdraw workflow first.