Chemical Approval Tools Overview
Chemical Approval Tools are available for SDS Management and Chemical Management accounts only
If your organization has an approval process for any products you bring on-site, you may want to mimic this process in your account. While setting up an approval workflow is not required, using one is key if you need to keep detailed approval records for new SDSs added to your eBinder and you have a series of questions or forms you need completed as part of that approval process.
In the context of Chemical Management the word “Approval” has a very specific meaning, referring to configurable workflows and business rules governing the auditable, regimented process by which safety data sheets must be approved by specific individuals or user roles before being added to their organization’s eBinder. Account Administrators and Administrators with access to the Queue and Approval menu can view, set up, and implement approval processes.
Your VelocityEHS account gives you several ways to set up approval workflows so that specific users are required to review and approve safety data sheets before they can be added to your eBinder. Additionally, users asking to add safety data sheets to your eBinder can be required to answer questions about why they want to add that safety data sheet.
When you implement an approval process, any safety data sheets that are routed through that approval process will automatically be routed to the Queue before they can be added to the eBinder.
Selecting an Approval Type
By default, only Account Administrators can select an approval type. To choose an approval type, select Settings in the upper right-hand corner and then click on Queue and Approval.
Chemical Management accounts come with two main types of product approval workflows:
- Organization Wide Approval: one approval workflow that applies to your entire account
- Site-Specific Approval: ability to create different approval workflows for different locations in your account
You can select either Organization Wide or Site-Specific. One account cannot use both at the same time.
Only Account Administrators and Administrators can be approvers in an Organization Wide Approval workflow. If you need Managers to be approvers, you will need to select Site-Specific Approval.
Selecting a Process Type
For both Organization Wide and Site-Specific Approval workflows you can choose one of three process types:
- Single-Step Approval allows any Administrator to approve a document in one step.
- Independent Multi-Step Approval allows the Account Administrator to set up a chemical approval process whereby several departments can have a say in whether a chemical should be approved for the organization or not. These steps can be completed in any order.
- Sequential Multi-Step Approval allows the Account Administrator to set up a chemical approval process whereby several departments can have a say in whether a chemical should be approved for the organization or not. These steps must be completed in order.
If you select Single-Step Approval, you can select a single approver or multiple approvers that can take action on the safety data sheet on a first come, first served basis.
For Multi-Step Approval workflows, you can create up to 5 steps with different approvers assigned to each step.
For all approval and process types, you can create up to 20 questions that the person asking to add the safety data sheet needs to answer. These answers are displayed to the approvers throughout the workflow.
Also, if you have additional documents that need to be completed or reviewed by the submitter as part of the approval process you can attach them to the workflow.
