How to change an approver in ApprovalMax

Work out which kind of change you need. Swapping someone on one request, to handle an exceptional or non-standard case, is done on the request and leaves the workflow alone. Changing who approves a type of request from now on is done in the workflow's approval step.

On a request, your role sets your limits. Administrators can add or remove any Approver on a running request. Approvers can add others from their organisation, remove the ones they added themselves and reassign the request to another Approver. They can't remove Approvers that came from workflow rules or that someone else added, which carry a Locked icon. Requesters can add other Approvers from their organisation to any step and remove the ones they added.

The step's approval condition matters as well. Approvers get the option to add another Approver in steps set to the All condition. In a step set to Any of, the Change Approvers button isn't available to Approvers or Requesters.

Reassigning hands over approval authority and nothing more. A new Approver who isn't also set up as a Reviewer can't edit Bills, even when the person they replace was a Bill Reviewer.

1. To change Approvers on one request, open it and click Change Approvers, found under the approval step next to the last Approver.
2. Add or remove the Approver, then click DONE.
3. To pass your own approval to someone else instead, click Reassign, select the new Approver and click REASSIGN THE REQUEST.
4. To change a step for future requests, pick your organisation from the main menu, then go to Workflows and settings and choose Approval Workflows.
5. Open the workflow and find the approval step you want to change.
6. Click ADD AN APPROVER to add someone, choosing them from the dropdown list of users or typing a new user's email address, and make any other change the step needs.
7. Click UPDATE THE WORKFLOW to activate the change.
8. To move pending requests onto the new setup, click the three-dot icon in the top right-hand corner of the workflow and select Restart from the dropdown.
9. In the pop-up, tick each pending request that should follow the updated workflow, add a comment for the Approvers if you'd like, and click RESTART.

A change made with Change Approvers or Reassign stays on that one request. The workflow's settings are untouched, so later requests follow the usual rules.

An updated workflow governs new requests. Requests created earlier and not yet approved carry on with their historic Approvers, the ones picked under the old rules, unless you restart them. Every request still has to pass through all of the workflow's steps before it's fully approved.

A restart throws away the request's approval progress and assigns Approvers again from the latest setup. Anyone who had already made a decision has to approve again; their earlier decisions don't carry over. The audit trail at the bottom of the request records that the workflow was restarted, and a restart from the workflow settings also shows who triggered it and when.

An Approver added to a request can be taken off again while Change Approvers is still offered on it, since Administrators can remove any Approver and Approvers and Requesters can remove the ones they added.

Can't see Change Approvers? It isn't offered on closed requests, in steps that have already been approved or rejected, or to Approvers and Requesters in steps using the Any of condition.

If an Approver won't come off, look for the Locked icon. That person was added by a workflow rule or by someone else, so an Approver can't take them off. An Administrator can remove any Approver.

If bills keep going to the wrong people because the workflow rules were outdated or misconfigured, correct the workflow and restart the affected requests so the right Approvers are assigned.