In some cases, you may want one group of users to approve the submissions of another group of users. A supervisor may need to approve case closure, or a M&E officer may need to approve submissions of reporting partners. This article shows you how to use “Reviewer Only” field property to configure such workflows in ActivityInfo.
Step 1: Add the “Monthly reports”
First, we will add a data collection form for monthly reports from partners.
Navigate to your database, and click “Add Form”
Add the month field
- Click the “Add a field” button
- Select the “Month” field type
- Set the label to “Reporting Month” and check the “Key” setting
- Click Done
Add the reach field
- Move your mouse cursor to below the first field and click the “+” button
- Select the “Quantity” field type
- Set the label to “Number of beneficiaries reached” and check the “Required” setting
- Click Done
Add the approval field
Navigate to the form designer for the form to which you which to add the approval step.
- Add a new single-select field with the label “Approval”
- Check “Required”
- Check “Reviewer only”
- Add three options: “Approved”, “Rejected”
- Make the “Pending” option the default.
- Click “Done”
Your form should now look like the following:
Click “Save” to save the new form.
Step 2: Define the submitter and approver roles
Return to the database page, then click “Database Settings”, and then “Roles”.
Add the “Submitter review”
- Click “Add role”
- Enter the “Submitter”
- In the “Resources” section on the left hand side, click “Grant resources” and choose the “Monthly reports” you added in Step 1
- In the card on the right hand for “Monthly” reports, check “View all records”, “Add any record”, and “Edit all records”. Do not check “Edit ‘Reviewer only' fields.
- Be sure to click “Save” on the bottom of the card.
Add the Reviewer role
- Click “Add role”
- Enter the “Reviewer”
- In the “Resources” section on the left hand side, click “Grant resources” and choose the “Monthly reports” you added in Step 1
- In the card on the right hand for “Monthly” reports, check “View all records”, “Edit all records', and “Edit ‘Reviewer only’ fields”
- Click “Save” at the bottom of the card.
Step 3: Submitting a new monthly report
Add a user with the Submiter role and log on as that user. You can use a personal Gmail account to test this part of the tutorial.
As the user with the Submitter role, navigate to the “Monthly reports” form and then click “Add record.”
As a Submitter, the “Approval” field is not visible in the data entry form because that field is marked as “Reviewer only” and the Submitter role does not have the “Edit ‘Reviewer only’ fields” permission.
Click “Save record”.
The monthly report should now be visble in the Table view:
The “Approval status” field is also visible, but cannot be edited by the the user with the Submitter role.
Step 4: Approving the monthly report
Logout and log back in with the “Reviewer” role, or as the database owner.
Navigate to the “Monthly Reports” form.
Select the 2024-06 monthly report and click “Edit”.
Because you have the “Edit ‘Reviewer only’ fields” permission, you can now change the status of the record to “Approved”