This documentation describes all functionality of an older version of ictime (3.x) for administrators and users. For documentation of the current version, please refer to the latest version of our documentation. For all versions of the documentation, please refer to Documentation History.
Reports: Approval
- Smadoa GmbH
If the approval feature is enabled (see Global Add-on Configuration) reports are the base for approving work logs. In addition, report are the base for accounting, i.e. charging work logs, and if approval is enabled, work logs might not be charged if they have not been approved before.
Scope
If approval is enabled, work logs can either not be charged if they have not been approved before, or there is a warning when charging work logs without approval. For details, refer to Approval.
The approval mechanism does not offer a functionality to explicitly "deny approval" and there is no status like "approval denied". Work logs are either not approved (yet), or they are approved.
Permissions & Configuration
Work logs can be approved by users who have been configured as "approval managers" of a project in ictime. For details, refer to Project Approval Managers. Approval is enabled/disabled here: Global Add-on Configuration.
If approval is enabled and later on, it gets disabled, all respective columns are no longer displayed in reports and timesheets and you can no longer approve work logs or withdraw approval for a work log. Work logs can be charged without being approved. However, work log approval state of a work log won't change, if you activate approval again, work logs that have been already approved will still show the respective approval status.
If approval is enabled and later on, it gets disabled, work logs that have been already approved will not change their approval status ("approved"). Keep in mind that this approval status means that
- you can't edit or move such work logs
- you can't delete such work logs.
This is completely independent from approval being enabled or disabled.
Approve Work Logs in the Structured View of Reports
To approve work logs, run a report that returns those work logs you want to approve (see Create Reports) and select the structured view mode (see Reports: Work Log Details). You can't approve work logs in the list view mode!
Use the "Approval Status" picker in the reporting search mask to find only issues with work logs that have not been approved yet.
You can approve single work logs by simply checking the respective checbox:
The approval state icon for the work log will change to green and - if the issue displays more than one work log (according to your reporting criteria) - the approval "state" icon on issue level will get yellow.
Once all work logs of one issue (according to your reporting criteria) are approved, the approval state icon for the issue will get green.
You can also approve all work logs of one issue (according to your reporting criteria) by clicking the approval checkbox on issue level:
In this case, all work logs of the issue (according to your reporting criteria) are approved at once.
Please keep in mind that indication of approval "status" on issue level refers to your current report only. If your report criteria did not deliver all work logs for one issue, you will see the issue with green approval "state", but there might be other work logs for this issue that have not been approved yet. In fact the isue itself does not really have an "approval state".
Withdraw Approval
The action of approving a work log or all work logs of an issue can be withdrawn at any time by simply un-checking the approval checkbox. There is no workflow with strict status transitions.
Work logs that have been charged (ictime work log status "charged") can not be changed any longer, and this also applies to approval.
Work Log Approval Status
Work logs can have the following approval status that have the following implications:
| Status | Description | Implications |
|---|---|---|
| none (not approved) | work log has not been approved yet | work log can either not be charged or warning when trying to charge (depending on configuration, see Global Add-on Configuration) |
| approved | work log has been approved |
|