Approval workflow in Ventoo Case Management

Activities can go through an approval step before they are billed. This is especially relevant for external work (e.g. external consultants whose hours must be released before being paid via a purchase invoice). The workflow is controlled through the role of the performing party.

Activity status

Status	Meaning
Draft	Draft, not yet submitted.
Submitted	Submitted, awaiting approval.
Approved	Approved, ready for billing.
Invoiced	Invoiced.
Cancelled	Cancelled.

Role-based control

On the role record (see Roles and party types) you define how activities of parties in that role are handled:

Field	Effect
Submission Required	Activities must be submitted before they can be approved/billed.
Auto Submit	Activities are submitted automatically (status Submitted).
Auto Approve	Activities are approved automatically (status Approved).
Approved By Role	Role authorized to approve these activities.

This lets you model different cases: internal employees whose work is billed without release (Auto Approve) versus external consultants who must submit and whose hours a responsible person approves.

Flow

A party records an activity. Depending on the role, it stays Draft or is automatically Submitted.
If the role requires approval, the submitted activity appears for the responsible approver (the "Approved By Role" role) – among other places as a cue in the role center.
The approver sets the status to Approved (or rejects / resets).
Only approved activities flow into billing.

The case card provides Submit and Approve actions for this. On approval, the time and approver are recorded; subsequent changes to approved activities are counted (post-approval changes).

Process gate

In addition, a process step can block advancement until all activities of a case are approved – via the Require All Activities Approved field on the step (see Processes). The billing engine also has a release gate: activities that require approval but are not approved are not invoiced.