Approving Items in SAS Customer Intelligence 360
To enrich the item creation process in SAS Customer Intelligence 360, you can utilize the approvals process functionality. It provides a workflow process where users can create items. But before they can be published and utilized, they must be approved by another user(s). These approving users must have the Approver role assigned to them.
Note that this approval process is completely optional. In fact, they must be specifically enabled in General Settings for each applicable item. These items are: activities, tasks, segment maps, data views, messages, and creatives. The approval process can be enabled individually for each of these item types. For example, approvals could be enabled only for the creation of messages (i.e. the other items do not require approvals). Let’s take a look at how the approval process workflow operates.
Approvals Workflow
As an example, I’ll create a new message that requires approvals from 2 other users. Before a message approval workflow can be initiated, the message must be first saved and marked ready. Because approvals have been enabled for messages, an additional page titled Approvals appears in the Orchestration tab of a message item. To initiate the approval workflow process, simply click the Submit for approval button:
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A screen appears to add the user(s) requiring approval. For each user, you set the Duration which is the number of days in which the review is due. The Start Date field is automatically filled with the current date. The Due Date gets set by one of 2 ways: you apply a number for Duration, upon which the system calculates and automatically sets the Due Date. Or, first you set the Due Date and subsequently the Duration is automatically calculated and filled in.
Another key feature is the Instructions. You can click the Global Instructions button to add general instructions for all reviewers. You can also click the Add button in the Instructions column for an individual user that provides a screen to enter any specific instructions or comments you wish to provide them.
Here is the result of adding two approving users and applying these features:
Once the approving users are set up, click the Send button to initiate the workflow process. Users have 3 ways to become aware of the item needing their review and to access the item: an email is delivered to each approving user; a new task appears in their My Workflow Tasks in the main left side menu; or a user can open the item itself and navigate to the Orchestration tab-Approvals page and click on the Pending my approval tab.
All methods provide access to a screen where the item can be reviewed and the user can either approve or reject the item. The user can also enter comments and add attachments to associate with their review. Once their review is complete, the last step is for them to click the Submit button:
Before an item that requires approval can be published, it must be approved by all reviewers. If a user rejects an item, then the workflow continues where the item creator will see the rejection and any comments sent. Further changes to the item can be made, and then the approval workflow can be resubmitted. This can continue in a workflow cycle until all users approve the item. Then the item can be published.
Users can monitor any pending approvals using the Approval cycles on the Orchestration tab-Approvals page within an item.
Sequential Review
The example review we just looked at was a “simultaneous” review – which means that more than 1 user was set up to review the item and they all can review and approve/reject the item simultaneously. By enabling the Sequential review button, a slightly different workflow process can be initiated that will require users to review the item in a specific order as indicated by the order in which the users are added. Note the Start Date is by default automatically set for the 2nd user according to the Due Date for the first user:
The 2nd user will not receive notices to review until the first user has completed their review. Once all reviewers approve the item, it can be published.
One final note - once the approval process is enabled for an item type such as messages, all new messages must be approved before they can be published.
For more details and information on using approvals for items in SAS Customer Intelligence 360, please visit these sites below:
Course:
- SAS Customer Intelligence 360 Fundamentals
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