Approvals

Notify stakeholders and managers automatically by assigning approvers to stages of engineering change orders (ECOs) under review. Changes can only be applied after the assigned approver accepts them. Approvals ensure reviews by team members, which prevents mistakes and premature actions.

See also

Stage configuration

Add approvers

To add an approver, first go to the PLM app, and click on the project card of an ECO type to open the Gantt view of the ECOs.

On the Engineering Change Orders page, hover over the intended stage, and select the (Actions) icon. Then, click Edit to open a pop-up window.

Note

Approvers can be added to any stage, but they are most essential in the verification stage, before the final closing stage which applies the ECO and updates the BoM. This allows stakeholders to control how and when changes are made.

See the documentation about stage types for more information.

In the Edit stage pop-up window, click the Add a line button, located under Approvals. Then, type in the position or title of the approver under Role (e.g. Engineering Manager, Quality Team, etc.), and select the relevant User from the drop-down menu.

Approval types

Next, set the Approval Type to Is required to approve, Approves, but the approval is optional, or Comments only.

Example

Assign the CTO, “Mitchell Admin,” as a required approver for ECOs in the Validated stage in the New Product Introduction ECO type.

Approvals from the quality and marketing teams are not required to apply changes to the ECO because their Approval Type is set to Approves, but the approval is optional and Comments only, respectively.

Manage approvals

Approvers can track their to-do approvals by navigating to the PLM app, and selecting the card for an ECO type, which shows the count of open tasks assigned to them.

Here’s what each button on an ECO project card does:

1. The # Engineering Changes button displays a count of in-progress ECOs of this ECO type. Clicking the button opens the Gantt view of the Engineering Change Orders page.

2. My Validations displays a count of ECOs the approver must accept or reject. Clicking on this button displays ECOs pending approval or rejected (marked with the red Blocked state).

3. The All Validations button shows the count of ECOs awaiting approval or rejected by any approver. Clicking it reveals these pending ECOs.

4. To Apply displays a count of ECOs to which the user needs to apply changes. Clicking on the button displays all the ECOs to approve, and apply changes to, in the verification stage.

ECOs marked with the green Done stage have already been approved, and the user needs to click on the ECO to enter the form view, and click the Apply Changes button.

Tip

ECO approvals can be accessed, managed, and follow-up actions scheduled through Activities. See the Activities documentation to learn more about integrating management workflows.

Approve ECOs

Navigate to an ECO in a verification stage, while logged in as the assigned approver, to see the Approve, Reject, and Apply Changes buttons.

To approve the ECO, and apply the changes onto the production BoM, click Approve, and then Apply Changes.

Note that the Apply Changes button will not work unless the Approve button was clicked first. Additionally, the chatter logs the history of the clicked buttons.

Warning

If no approver has the Is required to approve approval type, the Apply Changes button will work without requiring the Approve button to be clicked first.