Electronic Approval Tracking

Your organization may decide that it needs to keep an electronic approval record of the users who reviewed and approved any given version of the analysis. In such cases, an authorized user assigns the approvers for the version while the version is being worked on. Once the version has been closed, the application sends a notification e-mail to the assigned approvers that the version is ready to be approved and prompts them to review and "sign off" on the version if it is acceptable.

An authorized user can add or remove assigned approvers for any reason at any time starting from when the current revision is started and continuing until the next revision is started. Approvers can record their approval of the version at any time after the revision has ended. The software does not enforce a sequence in which the approvals must be submitted for a particular version. If a sequenced approach is preferred, it must be enforced by the organization’s processes (e.g., following an established chain of command).

Note: Electronic approval tracking in the change log is not the same as the Primary Approval field that is used in the FMEA Header tab. Any user who is able to edit the analysis can edit the text in the FMEA Header Primary Approval field, whereas electronic approval tracking in the change log is controlled by the software, as described here.