Why Can't I See or Approve This?
The most common question in FiscFlow. The short answer is almost always the same: everything lives in one shared pool, and FiscFlow only shows you the slice that matches your access. This page explains that in plain language - and shows you how to get FiscFlow to tell you the exact reason itself.
The big idea: one pool, filtered to you
It's tempting to picture a submission being mailed to specific people. That's not how FiscFlow works, and that mismatch is behind most confusion. Instead:
Every submission goes into one big shared pool. Nobody is individually sent anything. What each person sees is that same pool, filtered down to the work their access covers. Two people looking at "Approvals" are looking at the same pool through different filters - so they see different things.
So "why can't I see it?" really means "why doesn't my filter include it?" - and "why did this reach me?" means "my filter happens to cover it." Three things decide your slice:
- Your role
What kind of work you're allowed to see and act on. You hold a role by having an employee assignment that carries it - in the current fiscal year.
- Your approval filters
The Allow/Deny rules on that assignment that narrow the pool to specific accounts, sites, and classifications. No matching Allow = you see nothing; a matching Deny always wins. The mechanics live on Workflows, roles & filters.
- The step it's waiting on
A submission only reaches you to approve when it's currently sitting at your role's step - not before, not after.
Fastest answer: ask FiscFlow "Why Available?"
You don't have to guess. Whenever an action is greyed out - or one you didn't expect is enabled - use the Why Available action.
- Select the submission
Open it, or tick it in the list.
- Run Why Available
It lists each action - Approve, Reject, and so on - and shows every condition behind it as a simple met / not-met check.
- Read the first "not met" line
That's your answer: the one condition standing between you and the action (wrong fiscal year, no covering Allow filter, a Deny in the way, not your step yet, and so on).
"Can't see it" vs "see it but can't act"
These feel the same but have different causes:
| What you're seeing | Usually means |
|---|---|
| It's not in my list at all | Your filters don't cover it, your role can't view others' work, your account is inactive, or it's in a different fiscal year. |
| I can see it, but can't approve it | It's not currently at your step yet, or - on a multi-site position - it's tied to a site you're denied, even though you can see the position itself. |
Access is scoped per site, which is why you can see a position but not one of its submissions. The full walkthrough (and the timing of when access changes take effect) is on Who can see what.
The quick checklist
If you expected something and it isn't there, check these in order - or just run Why Available, which checks them for you:
- Is your approver assignment in the same fiscal year as the work?
- Do you have an Allow filter that matches its account, site, or classification?
- Is a Deny filter excluding it? (Deny wins.)
- For a multi-site item, are you allowed on that specific site?
- Is it actually at your step yet - or still waiting on an earlier approver?
- Did access change recently? Press Refresh or re-open the view.
When a submission reaches no one Admin / champion
Sometimes the answer isn't about you - the submission's routing matches nobody's filters, so it just sits there, stuck. FiscFlow surfaces these in Stuck Submissions, a monitoring view that lets a few key people catch a mis-configuration (a missing approver assignment, a filter that's too narrow, a role no one holds this year) before it holds up payroll.
If a user insists their submission "disappeared," it's often waiting in Stuck Submissions for an approver who doesn't exist yet. Fixing the assignment or filter releases it into the pool.