Approve, Reject & Recall
Once a submission is submitted it moves step by step through its workflow. This page covers each action an approver or submitter can take, what it does, and exactly who is allowed to do it - plus how to find out why an action is or isn't available to you.
The actions at a glance
| Action | What it does | Where it goes next |
|---|---|---|
| Approve | Records your approval for the current step and advances the submission. Approving the last step finalizes it - there's no separate "finalize" button. | The next step's role - or Approved & done if it was the last step. |
| Reject | Sends the submission back for changes. A single action - when you reject, you choose how far back it goes. Leave a note to say why. | Back to the original submitter, or to a specific earlier approver (your choice). |
| Recall | The submitter pulls their own submitted item back to a draft. | Back to the submitter as a draft. |
| Undo approval | Removes the most recent approval and re-routes to that step. | Back to the step that was just undone. |
Who can approve a step
Approve and Reject share the same eligibility. FiscFlow shows the action - and lets it succeed - only when all of these are true. This is also the checklist behind the "why can't I approve this?" explanation:
- It's been submitted and isn't awaiting revision
- The employee assignment is approved - or there is none
Timesheets can't be approved until HR approves the position. PR submissions have no assignment, so this is automatically satisfied.
- You hold an assignment in the submission's fiscal year
- …carrying the exact role the submission is waiting on
If the submission is at "Program Manager" and you hold "Department Head," you can't act yet.
- …whose approval filters cover this submission
At least one Allow filter must match its account/site/classification, and no Deny filter may match. See Approval filters.
On a multi-site position you might see an assignment in your list but be unable to act on a submission tied to a site you're denied. Visibility and the ability to act are both scoped per site - see Who can see what.
When an action you expect is greyed out (or one you don't expect is enabled), use the Why Available action. It explains, action by action, exactly why each one is or isn't available to you right now - showing every rule above as a simple met / not-met check. It's the fastest way to see which condition is stopping you. For the bigger picture of why a submission does or doesn't reach you at all, see Why can't I see or approve this?
Approving through to the end
Each approval advances the submission to the next step in order. When only the last step remains, the submission is awaiting final approval; approving that step finalizes it - stamping who finalized it and when, and marking it Approved. That's the moment a submission is "done."
A role can appear more than once in a workflow. Each occurrence is approved separately - so a submission can legitimately come back to you a second time later in the chain.
Approving several steps in one click
If you hold the roles for several consecutive steps of a workflow - and your filters cover the submission at each - a single Approve advances it through all of them at once, stopping only when it reaches a step you don't hold (or the final approval). You don't have to approve the same submission over and over; FiscFlow rolls your consecutive approvals into one click.
Rejecting - and choosing how far back
Reject is a single action with a choice. When you reject, FiscFlow asks where the submission should go, and you pick one target:
| Send it to… | What happens |
|---|---|
| The original submitter | Returns it to whoever created it as Needs Revision and clears every approval collected so far. They fix it and resubmit, which restarts the workflow from the first step. Use this when the request itself needs changes - e.g. back to the employee to correct their hours. |
| A specific earlier approver | Sends it back to that earlier step instead of all the way to the start. FiscFlow removes that step's approval and everything after it, then routes it back to that role. Use this when one earlier approver needs another look - e.g. back to the timekeeper for confirmation - but the rest of the chain was fine. |
Recall - for the submitter
If you submitted or own a submission and need it back before it's finished, Recall pulls it out of the workflow to a draft, deleting the approvals collected so far. Two limits:
- Only the submission's employee or its creator can recall it - approvers can't.
- You cannot recall once it's reached the final approval step (awaiting final approval) or has been finalized.
Undo an approval
Undo removes the most recent approval and sends the submission back to that step. It's for correcting a mistaken or premature approval. The rules:
- You must hold an assignment, in the submission's fiscal year, carrying the role that gave that most recent approval, with filters that still cover it.
- It doesn't matter who originally clicked approve - eligibility is about holding a covering assignment for that step's role now.
- The submission's fiscal year must still be active.
- You cannot undo once any of the submission's hours have been exported to payroll.
After hours are exported, you can no longer undo the approval, and the hours themselves can't be edited or deleted. Correct anything before the payroll export runs.
Two people approving at once
If two approvers hold the same step's role and act on the same submission at the same moment, FiscFlow accepts the first commit and rejects the second with a concurrency error. Simply refresh and you'll see it has already moved on - no double approvals, no lost work.
Common messages
| Message | What it means |
|---|---|
| "You do not have permission to approve this submission" | You don't hold the awaited role with a covering Allow filter (or a Deny excludes it). |
| "A submission window must be selected" | Pick a pay period before submitting. |
| "There are no approvals available to undo" | The submission has no approvals yet. |
| "You do not have permission to recall this submission" | Only the creator/employee can recall, and not after final approval. |