This article explains how to follow the e-documents you sent to employees on Comms and docs > E-document archive: seeing which document waits for approval, reminding the employee, sending a rejected document again, reading a document's history, the automatic follow-up settings, the report and Excel. Users with the Add E-Document Approval permission use this screen and see only the documents of employees in the branches they are responsible for.
To send documents, use Send e-document at the top right of the page; the window opens without leaving the archive (below). The fields are described in Sending e-documents.
Before you start
You need the Add E-Document Approval permission.
For reminder and resend e-mails to reach employees, the employees must have an e-mail address.
Step by step: follow documents
In the left menu, go to Comms and docs > E-document archive.
The tabs above the list count the documents by status: Total documents, Waiting for approval, Waiting over 7 days (the number of days is Overdue after in the follow-up settings), Approved and Rejected. Click a tab to filter the list to that status; the Total documents tab shows every document.
Narrow the list with the row under the tabs: the Search employees box and the Document type, Branch (shown when you are responsible for more than one branch) and Sent date filters next to it. Click a filter and pick a value; a set filter reads like "Document type: Privacy notice" and its cross removes it. Click Clear all to remove them all. The right end of the row shows how many documents were found.
The table columns:
Employee and Document type. The check badge next to the document type shows that the document is timestamped.
Sent: the date it was sent. If the document was sent again, a note such as "Sent again 2 times" appears under it.
Status: Waiting for approval, Overdue (7+ days), Approved or Rejected. A pending document shows "Waiting for 4 days" under it; for a rejected document, the employee's reason appears under the status if they wrote one.
Answered: the date the employee approved or rejected it.
Reminders: the number of reminders sent for the document. Hover to see the date of the last one.
Click a column header to sort: the first click sorts ascending, the second descending, the third removes the sort. The Sort menu at the right end of the row does the same. Employee, Document type, Sent, Status (waiting, approved, rejected, in that order), Answered and Reminders sort.
Pick how many documents a page shows and move between pages at the bottom of the list. On a narrow screen (a phone, for example) the list turns into cards with the same details and the Actions menu.
Step by step: send e-documents
Click Send e-document on the right of the page header. Only users with the Add E-Document Approval permission see the button. If you have not sent any document yet, the middle of the list says "You have not sent any e-documents yet" and the Send e-document button under it opens the same window.
In the window, choose the E-Documents to send (optionally a group in E-Document Groups first) and the recipients with the Branch, Department, Position and Employee fields; optionally write a Message and set Enable the rejection feature..
Check the summary at the bottom of the window for how many people it goes to (for example "Will be sent to 5 people", "2 documents · 10 records in total").
Click Send.
The notice "E-document sent to 5 people." appears, the window closes and the list and the tab counts refresh; the new documents appear in the list as Waiting for approval. If you were on the Approved, Rejected or Waiting over 7 days tab, the list switches to Total documents. When you open the same window with Send document in Quick add on the home page or in the Create menu of the left menu and send, the open archive list refreshes too.
Step by step: row actions
The row's Actions menu offers these options depending on the document's status:
PDF Files: download the PDF of an approved timestamped document.
Detail: the document's name, description, employee, status, dates, reminder count, reason for rejection and the document file.
History: the document's events in order (see below).
Remind: only for documents waiting for approval.
Send again: only for rejected documents.
Delete: for a document that is not approved. An approved document cannot be deleted because it is the record of the employee's approval.
Send a reminder
For one document, choose Remind in the row's Actions menu. For several documents, select them with the boxes in the first column of the table and click Remind selected (N) in the bar that opens at the bottom of the list. The number is how many of the selected documents wait for approval.
In the Send a reminder window, write a note for the employee in Note (optional) if you like.
Click Remind (N).
The employee gets an e-mail and an in-app notification; several documents of the same employee are listed in one e-mail. A document gets at most one reminder a day. Documents that could not be reminded are listed under Reminders not sent with the reason: Already reminded today, Employee is inactive, The employee has no e-mail address or Not waiting for approval. You can remind at most 500 documents at once.
Send a rejected document again
Choose Send again in the Actions menu of the rejected document. If the employee wrote a reason for rejection, it appears in the window.
Write a note in Note (optional) if you like (e.g. that the details were corrected).
Click Send again.
The document goes back to Waiting for approval and waits on the employee's My E-Documents screen. The reminder count is reset; automatic reminders are counted from the day it was sent again. The employee gets an e-mail and an in-app notification. A document cannot be sent again to an inactive employee.
See a document's history
Choose History in the row's Actions menu. The Document history window lists the document's events in order: Sent, Reminded, Automatic reminder sent, Sent again, Approved and Rejected. Each event shows the date and time, the user's name when a user did it, and the note or reason for rejection when one was written.
Step by step: follow-up settings
In the left menu, go to Configuration, pick E-document in the list on the left and the Follow-up settings card at the top. The Settings button in the header of the E-document archive screen opens the same page.
Automatic reminder to the employee is on at first. Its settings:
First reminder, days after sending (1-60 days, default 5).
Next reminders every (0 = no repeat) (0-60 days, default 7). The period is counted from the last reminder (manual ones included).
Maximum number of reminders (1-10, default 3).
The line below sums up the schedule you chose in a sentence.
Overdue documents report is off at first. When on, every Monday at 09:30 the documents waiting for approval longer than Overdue after (1-180 days, default 7) are e-mailed. Choose the recipients:
Users who can send e-documents (their branches): each gets only the documents of their own branches (ticked by default).
The employees' managers (their own team only): each manager gets only the documents of the employees reporting directly to them.
Extra e-mail addresses (the whole list): up to 20 addresses separated by commas. These addresses get the whole list.
Click Save in the bar at the bottom of the screen. Discard changes drops unsaved changes; if you try to open another setting or page without saving, you are asked to confirm.
To see the report's content, click Send me a test report. A sample with the current overdue documents (your branches) is e-mailed to you only; it is sent even when nothing is overdue.
The follow-up settings apply to the whole company. Everyone with the Add E-Document Approval permission can open the page, but only the company admin or users responsible for every branch can change it; the others see this at the top of the page and the fields are locked. Overdue after also sets the Overdue (7+ days) status in the archive and the Waiting over 7 days card.
Step by step: report and Excel
Click Report on the right of the page title. The E-document report window follows the filters on the screen (except the selected status tab); the applied filters are shown at the top of the window.
The top shows the Sent, Approved, Waiting for approval, Waiting over 7 days and Rejected counts with the approval rate and the average answer time.
The By document type and By branch tabs list the same counts with Approval rate and Avg. answer (days). The average answer time is calculated from documents answered after this update.
To download the report, click Export to Excel in the window; the two tabs are written to separate sheets.
To download the list itself, click Export to Excel on the right of the page title. The file has every document matching the filters on the screen (at most 20,000 rows): employee, active, branch, department, position, document type, timestamp, status, sent and answered dates, waiting days, reminder and resend counts, reason for rejection and the note sent with the document.
Result
For documents waiting for approval, automatic reminders go to the employee every morning at 09:00 by e-mail and in-app notification, following the settings. The default schedule: the first reminder 5 days after sending, then every 7 days, at most 3 times. An employee with several documents due on the same day gets one e-mail.
When the overdue documents report is on, it goes out every Monday at 09:30. A recipient with no overdue document to list gets no e-mail. The "View Overdue Documents" button in the e-mail opens this screen filtered to Overdue (7+ days).
Reminders, resends, approvals and rejections are written to the document's History.
Common problems
Symptom: I cannot see some employees' documents.
Cause: The screen shows only the documents of employees in the branches you are responsible for.
Fix: Ask for your branch responsibility to be extended (Manage Permissions).
Symptom: Remind is missing from the row menu.
Cause: The document is not waiting for approval (it was approved or rejected).
Fix: For a rejected document use Send again.
Symptom: The reminder result says Already reminded today.
Cause: A reminder was already sent for this document today.
Fix: Try again the next day.
Symptom: Send again says "The document could not be sent again."
Cause: The employee was deactivated, or someone else sent the document again a moment earlier.
Fix: Refresh the list and check the document's status.
Symptom: On the Follow-up settings page the fields are locked and there is no Save bar.
Cause: The settings apply to the whole company; to change them you must be the company admin or responsible for every branch.
Fix: Ask the company admin to make the change.
Symptom: Export to Excel says "At most 20000 rows can be exported. Narrow the filters."
Fix: Narrow the list with the date range, document type or branch filter and try again.