Documentation
Submitting a Document for Approval
Start a workflow from any document. Track its progress, see who's approved, and chase if needed.
Submitting a Document for Approval
Starting a workflow
Most documents that need approval can be submitted in three clicks:
- Open the document
- Click Start Workflow
- Choose a workflow template (e.g., “Document Approval”, “Invoice Processing”, “Contract Review”)
- Confirm — Papyrus pre-selects approvers based on your department and the document type
The workflow instance starts immediately. The first approver receives an in-app + email notification.
What you can see
After submission, the document's right sidebar shows:
- Workflow status — Running / Completed / Rejected / Cancelled
- Current step — what's happening now
- Approver(s) — who needs to act, with SLA deadlines
- History — every step taken, who acted, when, with what comment
- Estimated completion — based on past approver response times
Approver routing
Approvers are typically resolved by:
- Specific user — “Approval from Jane Doe”
- Role — “Approval from any Finance Manager”
- Department head — auto-resolved to the head of the document's department
- Workflow-driven — based on extracted metadata (e.g., invoices over X go to CFO)
If the configured approver is out-of-office, the workflow routes to their delegate automatically.
SLA tracking
Each workflow step has an SLA (typically 24-48 hours for routine, 4 hours for urgent). The SLA indicator:
- Green: comfortably within SLA
- Amber: 80% of SLA elapsed
- Red: SLA breached — escalation kicks in
Chasing an approver
Within a workflow, you can:
- Add a comment (visible to the approver, sends a notification)
- Request escalation (notifies the approver's manager)
- Cancel and re-submit (if you spotted an error in the document)
When approved (or rejected)
When all approvers act:
- Approved: workflow completes, status updates, downstream actions trigger (e.g., payment, contract signing)
- Rejected: rejection comment is mandatory; document returns to you for revision; you can re-submit
- Request changes: like rejection, but the workflow auto-restarts after you upload a new version