Report Approval comes into picture when a report is publicly published. A report can be published in any of the following ways:
Published as delivery option (Report Delivery Options page)
Published after viewing the report (For example from HTML Viewer, published as post-view operation)
Published through scheduling (batch scheduler or quick scheduler)
When a report associated with approval process is published, it gets listed on your Pending Reports page if you are:
Owner (the one who published the report)
Approver
Commenter of the report.
What you can do to a pending report
| You are a | What you can do |
| Owner | Can do nothing related to report approvals if you are not Approver or commenter of the report. |
| Approver | Specify comments, Approve or Reject a report. |
| Commenter | Specify comments on the report. Cannot approve or reject the report. |
What happens to a report
A commented report
The report will continue to appear in Pending Report List. A commenter (or approver) can comment it.
An Approved Report
The report will be removed from Pending Report List. It will be published and will appear on Saved Report List. All users who have rights to view it will be able to view and view comments for the report.
Important: Status of the approved report cannot be changed to Rejected.
A rejected report
The report will be removed from Pending Report List. It will appear in Saved Report List but only to the Owner and the Super Administrator.
Important: Status of the rejected report cannot be changed to Approved.
Delay in delivery
A report is published in a selected output type. If report delivery option for a report is email or FTP the report operation will not be started until the report is approved.
Figure 8: Pending Operations (causing delay in delivery)
Pending Operations column on Pending Reports List page will list all the pending operations for the report.
Approval Process: Working with comments
You can work on report approval in multiple ways:
Publish action from Report Delivery Options page
When a report is published from Report Delivery Options page, it will be listed in Pending Reports List page after it is generated. You can View this report in HTML to open it in HTML Viewer, and comment it.
View action from Report Delivery Options page
When you generate a report for VIEW (in HTML) from Report Delivery Options page, it will open in HTML viewer. The report needs to be published before you can work with approvals.
On HTML Viewer, when you click Add Comment button, a dialog box to publish the report will appear for you to publish the report. You can specify approval comments and also publish the report there itself.
Scheduled to be published
When a report is published as scheduled generation, once it is generated, it will be listed in Pending Reports List page. You can View this report in HTML to open it in HTML Viewer, and comment it.
Publishing and commenting as post view operation
If you are report owner, then you can view the report, publish it as well as comment right from HTML Viewer. General steps on HTML Viewer are:
- Click Add Comment
- On Publish dialog, specify publish related information.
- Click Set Approval Status
- On Add Comments dialog, specify approval comments and click respective button.
- Back on Publish dialog, click Publish
Figure 9: Publish and work with approval as post-view operation
Add Comment Dialog
Add Comment dialog appears when you click Add Comment button on HTML Viewer. It has area to specify comment text and approval related buttons.
Figure 10: Add Approval Process Comment dialog box
Button caption and window title will depend on the text specified on Approval Process page.
Select Show in next stage if you want users to view the comment when the report is approved / rejected.
Approving a report
To approve a report,
- From the page where the pending report is listed, open the report in HTML.
- Click Add Comments
- On Add Comments dialog, specify comment text (optional) and click Approve
Rejecting a report
To reject a report,
- From the page where the pending report is listed, open the report in HTML.
- Click Add Comments
- On Add Comments dialog, specify comment text (optional) and click Rejected
Commenting a report
You can add comments on a pending report or a published report.
To comment a report,
- From the page where the report is listed, open the report in HTML.
- Click Add Comments
- On Add Comments dialog, specify comment text (optional) and click Add Comment
Accessibility options for comments
While commenting, you have options to choose the users who should be able to view the comments.
Figure 11: Selecting users who can view comments
On Add Comment dialog, click 
icon. Access Right dialog opens up. Select the users who should be able to view the comments.
Viewing comments on a report
Report owner (the person who executed the report), approver / commenter and super administrator can view comments on a report that is published, rejected as well as is pending.
A report is considered published only after it is approved. All others who have access privilege to view that report will be able to view comments after the report is approved. Published reports are listed on:
- Saved Report List page (Report List for a category > Publish icon for a report)
- All Published Reports page ([Reports] > All Published Reports)
Figure 12: Icon to be clicked to view comments for the report
To view comments on a published report, click 
button in the row of that report when the report is listed on any of the above pages.
Printing comments along with the report
To print a published report, you need to open it in HTML Viewer.
Figure 13: Printing comments along with the report
On HTML Viewer, when you click Print button to print the report Print Report dialog box appears having Include comments checkbox on it. Select the checkbox to print comments along with the report.
Deleting Comments
For security reasons, application does not allow deleting comments made on its reports.