Disposal Approval

Introduction

Disposal Approval takes place in three stages in Records365: first, the Records Manager assigns an Approver for one or more records that reached the end of their retention period. Second, the Disposal Approver signs off on the disposal by either approving or rejecting the items assigned to them. Finally, the Records Manager completes the destruction of approved items.

Send for Approval

Many organizations require approval from one or more users prior to destruction. You can select one or more items in the Unactioned View and Send for Approval, assigning Approvers by their email address or by their Security Profile in Records365. When sending Unactioned records for Approval, the process is as follows:

• A draft email is created using the default mail client for the currently logged in user to all of the specified approvers. The draft can then be refined and tailored to meet the Records Manager’s needs. A link will be included in the draft to take the Approvers directly to the My Disposal View in order to complete the Disposal Approval process.
• All of the selected items will be assigned the specified approvers and will only be available to those users for approval. Record Managers can override the approval – this will mean that they will then be tracked as the Approver.

Bulk Approval

Bulk approval is now available which means you can approve up to 500,000 items at a time. To access this use the Advanced Search feature from within the Disposal page and use the Send for Approval action.

Ensure you select the items that should be sent for approval:

 Non-Bulk Approval

To send records for Disposal Approval:

1. Select the records that are ready to be sent for approval using the checkbox at the left of the row. Using the checkbox in the header row of the grid will select all items on that page. You may wish to use the Advanced Search bar to filter the results.
   
2. Click on the Send for Approval icon.
3. The side panel will open to the right of the screen for you to select either an email address or a Records365 Security Profile for the Disposal Approver. To fill out additional approvers, click Add Approver again. Any of the Approvers listed by email address or any member of a Security Profile listed can complete the disposal approval process for these records. Click on the Manage Users & Groups link underneath a Security Profile to see the list of users and groups that are members of this security profile.
   
4. Click Save. A draft email template will open in the default email client set up on your computer, with the link to the Disposal Approval page and the approvers you entered listed in the ‘To:’ field. The example below is for Windows 10 Mail, but this may open up in Outlook or another default email client you have set up.
   
5. Edit the email template, then send it to your Disposal Approvers when ready.
6. In Records365, a success message will appear showing the status of the records you have sent for disposal approval.
   

My Approval View

Once a Record Manager has assigned items ready for disposal to a Disposal Approver, they will receive an email containing a link to the Disposal page. This page contains the My Approval View which lists out all the items assigned to the currently logged in user that require action for Disposal Approval.

Manage Approval

Upon selecting one or more items, the user can then approve or reject all of those items for disposal. When rejecting a selection of items, comments must be provided so that records manager can take the appropriate next steps. Once items have been either approved or rejected they will no longer appear in the user’s My Approval View. After the approval has been actioned, the Records Manager will take the next steps in the disposal process.

Searching and Browsing Records

By default Disposal Approvers do not have access to browse or search the entire catalogue of records in Records365, however these features can be enabled by selecting the Search Records permission in the associated users Security Profile. For more information see the Security Profiles page.

Record Information

The record Quick Summary is available for Disposal Approvers by clicking on any row in the My Approval View grid, and is tailored to their context such that they can see who was the original author and which content source the records were submitted from. The Location field also allows a Disposal Approver to view the content (if available) in its original location in the Content Source. Finally, the full record details are available by clicking on the link in the ‘Title’ column in the grid for any record.

To approve or reject items for Disposal Approval:

1. Select the items using the check boxes at the left hand side of the My Disposal View page.
2. Click on Manage Approval.
3. Select the approval decision to be recorded and enter comments as required. Comments are mandatory when rejecting records for disposal.