Approvals and Tasks

Learn how the approvals flow works in Workday, including the approval process, common uses for approvals, and how to track the status of your approval tasks. Stay informed and ensure your requests are processed smoothly and efficiently.

Workday's approval process ensures that various actions and transactions are reviewed and authorized by the right people. 

Key Concepts

1. Approval Chains: These are the steps your request goes through for approval. They can be simple (one person) or complex (several people).

2. Roles: Different people have different responsibilities in the approval process. These include:

   • Initiator: The person who starts the request.
   • Approver: The person who reviews and approves the request.
   • Reviewer: Someone who may need to look at the request but doesn’t have to approve it.

Common Uses of Approvals in Workday

Approvals are used for a variety of items in Workday, including but not limited to:

• Expense Reports: Ensuring that expenses are reviewed and approved before reimbursement.
• Spend Authorizations: Approving requests for spending or travel.
• Timesheets: Verifying the hours worked by employees.
• Time-Off Requests: Approving vacation, leave, absence, or other time-off requests.
• Purchase Orders: Approving orders for goods and services.

Steps in the Approval Flow

1. Initiation: You start a process, like submitting a time-off request or expense report, which triggers the approval flow.

2. Routing: Workday sends your request automatically to the first approver(s) in the chain. This is often based on factors like your department or the type of request.

3. Notification: Approvers get notified about the pending approval task in their Workday inbox and possibly via email.

4. Review and Action: Approvers look at the task and decide what to do:

   • Approve: They approve the task, which moves it to the next approver or gets completed if no more approvals are needed.
   • Send Back: They return the task to you for more information or corrections.
   • Deny: They reject the task, stopping the process.
   • Delegate: They pass the approval task to someone else if they cannot complete it.

5. Completion: Once all required approvals are done, the task is completed, and the action (like booking your time off) takes effect.

Viewing Approval Status and Approvers

To see who your approval task is going to and its current status:

1. Access Your Task Inbox: Go to your Workday inbox to find all your submitted tasks.
2. Check the Process History: Open the task you are interested in and look for the 'Process History' tab. Here, you can see a detailed timeline of the approval process, including who has already approved the task and who still needs to approve it.
3. Monitor Notifications: Keep an eye on notifications for updates on the approval status.

Viewing Tasks Assigned to Me or Multiple People

1. Access the Task Inbox: Click on the Inbox icon, usually located in the top right corner of the screen. This will take you to your task list.

2. Click Advanced Search: In the Inbox, you'll see various filters and options to narrow down the tasks. Advanced Search is located right under the All Items search box.

   1. Under the Parameters, select the Assignment drop-down field.
      1. To see tasks assigned to you, look for the filter or tab labeled "My Tasks" or similar. This filter will show only those tasks that are specifically assigned to you.
      2. To find tasks assigned to multiple people, select Assigned to Multiple People to view tasks that you have that other people are also assigned. 

3. Apply the Filter: Select the appropriate filter to view the tasks accordingly. This will help you differentiate between your personal tasks and those shared with others.