Tracking Approvals for a Change Order

A contract change order must be approved by agency reviewers at several levels of authority before any changes can be made to the contract. Your agency determines a default structure for how many levels of approval are required for each change order type, at what stage each approval should take place, and which agency or non-agency user group has authority to approve each change order at each approval level.

A change order follows this typical workflow:

1. When a change order is ready for approval, the user with authority to approve is notified by email.

2. The approver reviews the change order and selects Approve, Reject, Deny, or Void from the Actions menu on the Contract Change Order Summary component header.

3. At each approval level, the approver must add a comment about his approval decision.

4. If the change order is rejected, the system records the decision, closes the approval round, and sets the change order's status to Rejected.

5. If the change order is denied, the system records the decision, closes the approval round, and sets the change order's status to Denied. Once denied, a change order cannot be changed or deleted, and will never be incorporated into the contract. (The only difference between the Denied and Voided status settings is that a change order that includes dollars or time cannot be voided.)

6. If the change order is voided, the system records the decision, closes the approval round, and sets the change order's status to Voided. Once voided, a change order cannot be changed or deleted, and will never be incorporated into the contract.

7. If approved as a member of a lower assigned approval group, the system records the decision and sends notification to members of the next higher approval group that it is ready for approval.

8. If approved as a member of the highest assigned approval group, the system changes its status to Approved and incorporates all the changes into the contract. Once the final approval is made, a change order cannot be changed or deleted.

The Approval Tracking tab on the Contract Change Order Summary contains an accordion list of approval records for the change order, sorted by round and approval group. To locate information about a specific approval group, enter criteria in the Quick Find search box. You can also filter the list to show only the latest round of approvals by selecting Latest Only in the Rounds field at the top of the list. The system displays rows for approval groups that match your criteria.

Each row displays an Actions button and current values for these fields:

• Approval Group

• Round

• Override Action

• Decision Requested

• Decision Provided

• Decision

Expand a row to display additional information about the approval group in three groups:

General:

• Approval Group Added Date

Override:

• Overriding Person Name

• Overriding Person Title

• Override Comments

• Override Action Date

Decision:

• Approver Name

• Approver Title

• Approval Decision Comments

To delete an approval tracking record from this change order, select Delete from the Actions menu on the approval group row. To reverse the deletion, click the Undo button.

• Note: Approval tracking records cannot be deleted from a change order if a value has been entered in the Decision field.

When you are finished, click the Save button to apply your changes. The system displays a message to confirm that your changes were saved in the database.

Assigning Default Approval Groups to the Change Order

You can assign default approval groups to the change order based on the definition of the change order, the contract type, and the reference change order approval rules defined in the system. Before the system allows you to submit a change order for approval, at least one approval group must be assigned to the change order, and any group marked as a “Minimum Approval Level” group that would be assigned as a default approval group is also required. If you submit the change order for approval before approval groups have been assigned to the change order, the system automatically adds the default approval groups before changing the change order's status to Pending Approval.  

To add system default approval groups to the change order, go to the Contract Change Order Summary, click the Approval Tracking tab, and then select Assign Default Approval Groups from the list Actions menu. The system adds all the default approval groups according to your agency's change order approval rules. If a default approval group is already in the list, it is not duplicated.

Manually Adding an Approval Group (Override) to the Change Order

Follow these steps to add one or more new approval groups for this change order:

1. On the Contract Change Order Summary, click the Approval Tracking tab, and then click the Add Approval Group button.
   
   The system displays a modal window for adding approval groups.

2. Click in the Override Comments box and type information about why the approval groups are being added.

3. Locate the approval group you want to add by typing criteria in the Quick Find search box or by clicking Show first 10.
   
   The system lists all the approval groups that meet your search criteria.

4. Click the row for each approval group you want to add.
   
   The system adds a check mark beside each approval group you select and shades the row. To cancel a selection, click the selected row again.

5. Click the Save button.
   
   The system closes the modal window, takes you to the Approval Tracking tab with the new approval groups added to the list, and saves each new approval group with the Override Action set to Added.

Manually Removing an Approval Group (Override) from the Change Order

Follow these steps to remove an approval group that was added to the change order with the Assign Default Approval Groups action.

1. Note: The change order approval group Approval Group 1 is a required group. This group cannot be removed from the change order.

2. On the Contract Change Order Summary, click the Approval Tracking tab, and then select Remove Approval Group from the Actions menu on the approval group row.
   
   The system displays a modal window for removing approval groups.

3. Click in the Override Comments text box and type information about why the approval group is being removed.

4. Click the Save button.
   
   The system closes the modal window and takes you to the Approval Tracking tab. The removed approval group is still displayed in the list, but saved with the Override Action set to Removed.

Related topics:

Maintaining a Contract Change Order