SOP-2 Approve and Publish Processes

REVISION HISTORY

Description and Scope #

The following procedure describes the steps to approve and publish process documentation inside EPC. It explains all steps required to configure, submit, approve and publish content.

Purpose #

As processes are documented, a flow is needed to validate and publish the documentation in a way that conforms to governance standards and business needs.

Procedure #

Configure approval Cycle #

• Approval cycles must be configured so that the correct roles are implicated in the approval cycle.
• If the process has multiple levels (i.e. subprocesses), all levels need to be configured.
• At minimum, all approval cycles must involve at least

1. one Governance Team member to ensure that the document conforms to standards
2. the Process Owner to ensure that the documentation meets the needs of the business

• Roles and resources being assigned to approval cycles must be associated to a user. SOP-4 Onboard Users provides guidance on how to Import Users as Resources and Assign Resources to Roles.

To configure the cycle,

1. Navigate to the details section of the process to approve.

1. Navigate to the  box
2. A drop-down menu will be generated. Choose the Approval box
3. You will be redirected to the Assign Object Approval Cycles window
4. Navigate to the “Select Approval Cycle Type” box and select Serial. This will ensure that the process flows in a sequential manner.
5. Navigate to “Select Approvers” and type the name of the Roles or Resources* you want to assign as approvers. From the search suggestions, click to select the ones you want to assign. The ordering can then be changed as needed by drag and dropping the icon to the left of the roles.
6. If there are multiple levels to approve, select ‘Apply to all children’
7. Save the Approval Cycle

1. An error will be shown if the role/resource is not associated to a user. If issues are encountered, trigger the SOP-4 Onboard Users process.

Send Process for Approval #

• Once the cycle has been configured, the process can be sent for approval.
• As a prerequisite, only processes having an ‘In Progress’ Status can be sent for approval. Therefore, if the status is currently set as ‘Published’, ‘Cancelled’, ‘Rejected’, etc., the process must be edited and saved to give it a new ‘In progress’ version.
• If the process has multiple levels (i.e. subprocesses), all levels need to be sent for approval.

To send a process for Approval,

1. from the Process’ Graph or Details page, hit the Send for Approval button.
2. A window will open. Insert comments to help contextualize the approvers and hit Send for Approval.

Cancel Approval Cycle #

• An approval cycle can be cancelled at any point while it is underway to handle a wide set of scenarios.
• The status of the process will change from “Pending Approval” to “Cancelled”, at which point the process must be edited and saved as “In Progress” to be able to relaunch the process for approval.

To Cancel the Approval Cycle,

1. from the Process’ Graph or Details page, hit the Cancel Approval Request button.
2. A window will open. Hit the Cancel Approval Request button.

Review Process for Governance Approval #

• The first approval is for governance purposes. Here, the approver verifies that the process conforms to SOP-1 Map Business Processes.
• If the process has multiple levels (i.e. subprocesses), all levels need to be reviewed for approval.
• The approver is notified of the Approval request via their in-app notifications and emails (if email notifications are set to ON). It is however encouraged that the person sending the request contact the approver separately, especially in the initial phases of deployment, to ensure that they have received the request.

To perform the approval or rejection,

1. Navigate to the Graph or Details page of the process that needs to be reviewed. To access the request,
   1. the Approver must be in the correct user group to see Unpublished versions. See the Architecture Governance document for the correct group name. If a permission change is needed, trigger the SOP-5 Manage Permission Change Requests process.
   2. The Approver must be in Show Latest mode. This can be set in several ways, such as toggling the setting in their Profile, hitting the Edit Mode button, etc.
2. Review the process using EPC features such as Book Generation, Show Changes (Graph and Details), or by simply by navigating through the process in EPC.
3. When ready, expand the Pending Approvals Box, insert comments as needed and select either Approve or Reject.
   1. If approved, it navigates to the next task. If rejected, the workflow stops and the process’ status is set to ‘Rejected’, which may trigger the need to edit the process as required.

Review Process for Business Approval #

• The second approval is for business purposes. Here, the approver verifies that the process aligns with the business need.
• The actual flow and details are the same as that of the Review Process for Governance Approval.

Publish Process #

• Once the Process has been approved by all parties, it can now be published
• Publications can be major or minor
  • If Minor (e.g. typo corrections, adding a tag, etc.)
    • the version will increase by at least 0.001
    • New version notifications and confirmation requests will not be sent to RACI stakeholders
  • If Major
    • the version will increase by at least 1.0
    • New version notifications and confirmation requests will be sent to RACI stakeholders
• A decision must be made as to when the publication can take place (e.g. as soon as the final approval is given, first day of the following month, when the new process is ready for go-live)
• If the process has multiple levels (i.e. subprocesses), all levels need to be published.
• Note that for a process (or subprocess) to be published, their parent must also have been published so that it can be placed into the proper If the parent is not published, the publish button will be greyed out.

To Publish the process,

1. Navigate to the process’ graph or details page
2. Hit the Publish Button
3. A window will open. Add comments to contextualize readers, select whether it is a minor or major publication, and hit Publish.

Process Map #