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From Sustainability Program, you can assign workspace members to verify and approve the values collected for metrics, such as to verify calculations and ensure responses meet framework guidance or disclosure requirements. Approvers can verify their values directly from the metric in Sustainability Program or through Workiva Tasks or a connected source file.

Assign approvers to metric tasks

From Sustainability Program, you can assign workspace members to approve metric values collected during a collection period.

Tip: To help keep data collection flowing, you can send reminders for incomplete tasks. If an approver is delayed or unavailable, you can reassign the value to yourself, then approve the value to retain an approval workflow.

1. On the metric, select the Program year and collection period of the values to assign for approval.
2. In Tasks, create or edit the task for the values.
3. If the task has no approver, click Add approval step.
4. Select the workspace member to approve the task's values, or assign multiple approvers to approve by a shared due date or through a series of steps.
   • One approver
   • Multiple approvers

   To assign only one member as the approver, select them in Approvers, and set the approval due date.

   

   You can assign multiple members to approve a task, such as to:

   • Require approval from one of multiple members by a specific due date
   • Set up a series of approval steps, each with its own approvers and due date

   To assign the approval to multiple members:

   1. In Approvers, select the members to perform the task's initial approval — or its only approval, if no other steps are required — and select their due date.

      Tip: When you assign multiple members to an approval step, approval by any of them will complete their step. To require approval by multiple members, add a separate step for each approver.

   2. To have additional members verify the approval, click Add approval step, and set up the new step's approvers and due date.

      Note: Each approval step must be due after its preceding due date.

      Tip: To delete an approval step, select Remove step from its menu.

5. In Instructions, enter any guidance to help the assignee and approvers complete their tasks, such as:
   • Details about the value or data to collect
   • Any related framework-specific guidance
   • The context of the value's narrative in the reporting output

   Tip: You can enter up to 2,000 characters for instructions. For longer instructions, upload them as reference attachments.

Tip: You can track a value's data collection from its metric, and you can track the metric's data collection from its topic and Sustainability Program.

Approve or return a task's values

Workspace members assigned to approve a metric value receive a notification in Home and their email inbox when the value is ready for verification.

As an approver, you can complete this task:

• From the streamlined Workiva Tasks, for values without a connected source file
  
• From the Tasks or Sustainability panel of the connected source file, when applicable
  

To complete your task, either approve its values or return the task to the assignee if it needs rework:

• If the values are correct, click Approve, enter any note about the task's approval, and click Approve.
  

• To send the task back to the assignee — such as to correct or adjust its values — click Return, then enter a note to explain what to fix, and click Return.
  

  Tip: If the task includes multiple values, specify which to address in the return note.

Skip an approval step

If an approver is unavailable or can't complete their approval, the Task Owner can skip the approver's step in the approval workflow on their behalf. 

1. To open the task, click its name from Tasks in Home.
2. From the task, skip the approver's approval step:
   • From the Workiva Tasks portal, open the Task steps panel, select Skip from the step.
     

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  • From a connected source file, open the Tasks panel, and select Skip from the step in Task steps.