Completion Check stage rules

The Completion Check stage of an approval process determines whether conditions exist to stop routing a request to additional approvers. If a completion check is successful, routing stops and no additional approvers will see the request.

Example of Completion rules

When Jack approves a business expense for $100, a rule determines whether Jack has sufficient authority to approve a request for that amount. If so, the process passes the Completion Check stage. If not, the completion check fails and the routing of this request continues to another approver.

Rule types used in the Completion Check stage include:

• Get Authority
• Get Authority Regular
• Completion rule

Get Authority and Get Authority Regular rules

In the Completion Check stage, the Approval Server runs Get Authority or Get Authority Regular rules to collect information. Get Authority rules are described in Self-Check-stage-rules. 
 Like Get Authority rules, Get Authority Regular rules collect data that is used by the Completion rule. The Approval Server runs Get Authority Regular rules only during the Completion Check stage of an approval process.

Completion rules

Completion rules test whether sufficient authorization exists to stop routing an approval request. A process is complete when the Approval Server has routed the request to all required approvers even if they have not yet all responded.

• No Completion—If the Completion rule condition is not met, the Get Next Approver rules are performed and the request is routed to the next approver. If no new approvers are found by the Get Next Approver rules, the Approval Server checks the Approval Success field of the Process Definition form.
  • If this field is set to No More Approvers, the process is done with a status of Approved.
  • If the Approval Success field is set to Completion Rule, the process is done with an error state, because no more approvers exist and no Completion rule has succeeded.
• Successful Completion—If the Completion rule condition is met, the request is not routed to any further approvers. If outstanding signatures exist when the routing Completion rules are fulfilled, the request remains active until either all approvers approve or one rejects the request.

A process that requires a fixed number of signatures will complete successfully when the process exhausts the Approver List. For example, you can create a process that completes routing when any five approvers respond, instead of completing with one approver of a specific authority.

Examples of the routing completion check

The rules governing approval of a business lunch might be determined by the amount of the request. If Frank requests approval of a $150 business lunch, and Jack has authority to approve requests for $150 or less, the process passes the completion check when Jack approves the request. If Jack does not have authority to approve requests of $150, the approval process does not pass the completion check when Jack approves it, and the process returns to the Get Next Approver stage. In this example, the Completion rule uses data gathered by a Get Authority rule to test for completion against a specific dollar amount.

Alternatively, the same request might require signatures from two steps up the management hierarchy. When Frank's manager and his manager's manager have approved the request, no more approvers are required, and the process is complete. In this case, the Completion rule uses data gathered by a Get Authority rule to test the approver relationships.

The Cost Completion and Level Completion rules in the Lunch Scheduler sample application are further examples of Completion rules. For information about creating a Completion rule, see Defining-Completion-rules. The following figure illustrates how the Approval Server uses the Completion, Get Authority, and Get Authority Regular rule types during the Completion Check stage.

Completion Check stage of an approval process