Approving value and initiatives

Two things in Roiva need a person's sign-off: an initiative moving from review into implementation (a spend approval), and every value entry before it counts toward cash value or freed capacity (a value claim). Costs don't need approving.

Where approvals wait

Inbox in the sidebar lists everything waiting on you, with a count beside it. Its Open tab is what you can decide now: each row carries Approve, and ticking several approves them together. If a row changes after the page loads (its figure is recalculated or retyped, say), it isn't approved with the rest, and the Inbox asks you to reload and review it again. Snoozed is what you have put off, and Done is what you have already dealt with.

Every decision already made is on Decisions, the account's ledger: the figure, the approver and the outcome as it stood at the time.

Approving a spend approval moves the initiative to Implementing, or, with an approval chain, on to the chain's next step until the last one approves. The final approval also sets the initiative's budget from the CapEx and OpEx in its business case. A Budget increase row is a revision that raised a budget above the senior approval threshold, or raised it at all when no threshold is set, which only the Owner can approve. See Budgets and budget vs. actual. Approving a value claim adds its amount to cash value or freed capacity, whichever its type is, where it appears on the ROI dashboard, in board reports and in exports. Capacity realized as cash can be approved only up to the initiative's freed capacity approved for its month, less what's already been realized, and only with a document cited. Dispute sends a value entry back and tells whoever recorded it, or the initiative's owner for an entry a formula or an integration worked out; it can then be changed and sent again with Submit for review. Only an entry waiting for approval can be disputed. To challenge an approved one, either edit it, or choose Send Back for Review on it (in its row menu on the Value Entries tab, or on its page or side panel) and say why. Either way it goes back to the approvers and isn't in cash value, freed capacity or ROI until it's approved again. A send-back appears on Decisions as Sent back, with the reason under it.

Which value entries wait for approval

Entries a value formula or an integration works out go straight to approvers.
Value logged by hand, or by the Assistant, starts as a draft. A draft, or an entry an approver disputed, waits until someone chooses Submit for review on it. An entry the Assistant drafted says so, on its page and on its row in the Inbox, and its page also says when someone has since edited it by hand. One it drafted before Roiva marked them, and approved in a month that has since been locked, still reads as entered by hand, since a locked month's figures don't change.
An entry a formula or a sync worked out says what it rests on that you should know before it counts. Its row in the Inbox names any figure Roiva supplied in place of yours (a default assumption such as the labor rate, a before-value Roiva estimated, a help desk's default deflection price or recontact window), and anything else worth a look: a figure carried forward from an earlier month, a time study's figure past its re-study date (Re-study due), a unit that changed from the baseline's, a figure dated after the month it priced, a share you credited to the initiative, the share of an IT incident's time its users were blocked (Blocked share), a figure converted to dollars at the European Central Bank's latest rate while its month's rates aren't all published (Provisional rate), or one that left out a currency the ECB publishes no rate for (No ECB rate). Its page marks each of those inputs, and the Approve confirmation names Roiva's figures again. Approving a selection together says how many of them rest on Roiva's figures. ROI → Provisional lists those figures, the one the most waiting value rests on first, each with a link to confirm or replace it.
It also says how the figure was measured where that's worth a look: Outside its charter when it was calculated differently from the initiative's signed charter (see Measurement charters), Still settling for deflected tickets still inside their recontact window, and Estimate or Reconstructed when its before-figure is one your own people estimated or a without-AI sample (see Baselines for an initiative that's already live).
An entry someone typed lists its Supporting documents on its page: the initiative's documents and links it cites, or None cited. It's what the figure rests on, so open them before you approve. Its row in the Inbox says how many it cites, and approving a selection together says how many of them cite none.
Saving any change to an approved entry, including the documents it cites, sends it back for approval. So does Send Back for Review, which leaves the entry alone and asks for a reason; the approvers are told the reason, and it shows on the entry. Changing, deleting or sending back an approved entry takes someone who could approve it.
An approved entry calculated from a reading that changes afterwards keeps counting the figure that was approved. Its page names each reading that changed, from what to what, and the Inbox lists it under Changed since approval for whoever could send it back. Send Back for Review recalculates it from the readings as they are now, for an approver to approve again.
An approved entry booked from won deals in HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive also keeps counting the figure that was approved when the CRM changes afterwards: a deal's amount, close date or currency changes, it's no longer won or no longer in the CRM, the initiative's link matches it differently or not at all, the initiative is no longer linked to the CRM, or a deal joins a month already approved. Its page names each deal that changed, and the Inbox lists it under Changed in the CRM since approval for whoever could send it back. Send Back for Review books it again from the CRM's deals as they are now, for an approver to approve again. Where nothing would book it again, its page says so: a one-time entry whose deal was deleted goes with the deal at the next sync once it's back, and one whose deal no longer books, or whose initiative is no longer linked to the CRM, is yours to edit or delete. Change a deal back and the entry drops off the list.
Approved freed capacity that capacity realized as cash was approved against stays approved while the realization does. Editing, sending back or deleting it is refused if the month would be left with less freed capacity than was realized, and so is approving a negative freed capacity figure that would do the same; send the realization back first.
In a locked month, none of that is possible: an approved entry dated in the month (by its period start, or by when it was approved if it has no period) can't be changed, sent back or deleted, and no entry dated in it can be approved, until someone reopens the month with a reason. See Allocation rules and accounting periods.
An entry calculated from a figure at a provisional rate can't be approved yet. It's calculated again at the month's average once the ECB publishes the month's rates, and can be approved then; until it is, its Approve button says why.
Someone who edits an approved entry can't approve the change. Someone who only sends it back can approve it again, so a second pair of eyes needs a different approver to pick it up.
A spreadsheet import brings entries in as drafts, submitted for review, or approved. Only someone who could approve an entry can import it approved.

Initiatives from a spreadsheet

Initiatives created with Upload documents start at Identified or Reviewing, which need nobody's sign-off. Rows imported into Reviewing go to their approvers, who get one notification for the whole import. See Creating initiatives from documents.

Only someone who could approve an initiative can import it at a later stage, and doing so counts as their decision: the initiative shows them as its approver on the day of the import, and the decision appears on Decisions, marked as made by importing it. For anyone else, a row the sheet puts further along starts in Reviewing, where its approvers decide.

Who can approve

The initiative's approval chain. On an initiative's edit form, Approval chain names who approves it: up to five steps, approved in order, each with its own approvers. Only the approvers at the current step can approve the initiative or its value entries, whatever their role. Only an Owner or Admin can set or change the chain, naming members who have joined the account; members see it read-only. Each change is recorded in the audit log with the chain before and after, including someone taken off it because they left the account or were removed. A step left with nobody in it falls back to any Owner or Admin.
No chain: any Owner or Admin can approve.
Senior approval threshold: above this amount (an initiative's planned CapEx plus a year of its planned OpEx, or a value entry's amount), only the Owner, or someone the Owner has delegated approvals to, can approve, whether or not the initiative has a chain. Notifications and reminders for it go to the Owner.
Not your own entry: by default nobody approves a value entry they recorded or last edited, or one a formula calculated from a reading or baseline they entered by hand or imported, or from a figure they set for that initiative alone (such as its attribution share). The same goes for an entry calculated or priced from a time study they published, owned, left timings out of, timed tasks for or imported timings into (see Running a time study). Nor does anyone approve an entry calculated with a formula they changed: not whoever last changed its expression or inputs, and not anyone who changed the formula after that, its type of value, unit or an input's label included. A synced reading, an account-wide figure like a labor rate, or a change Roiva made to a library formula doesn't count. The rule steps aside in two cases: while nobody else in the account could approve the entry, and when the account Owner turns on Allow people to approve entries they recorded. Nobody else means nobody besides the people the rule keeps off it: in a one-person account, or when every Owner, Admin and designated approver recorded it, edited it, entered a figure for it or changed its formula, any one of them can approve it. That case ends by itself as soon as someone else who could approve joins. Either way the entry is marked as self-approved (see below).
Delegation: someone going on leave can hand their approvals to a colleague for a date range under Profile → Delegations. Saving or removing one is recorded in the audit log, and one still running or yet to start ends, also recorded, when either person leaves the account.

If the Approve button is grayed out for you, one of these rules is why: hover over it to see which. Whoever they name can approve it: only the Owner, or the Owner's delegate, above the threshold; below it, the current step's approvers when there's a chain, otherwise an Owner or Admin; and for a value entry, not whoever recorded or last edited it, entered a figure it was calculated from, or changed the formula it was calculated with.

When someone approves their own entry

An entry approved by the person who recorded it, who last edited its figures, who entered a figure it was calculated from, or who changed the formula it was calculated with, still counts. Without that, an account with one person in it could never approve anything. What changes is that it says so, wherever someone relying on the figure would look:

The entry's page, under Approved By: "Recorded it too." (or "Edited its figures too.", "Entered figures it was calculated from." or "Changed the formula it was calculated with."), followed by why the rule allowed it. Either nobody else in the account could approve it then, or the account's approval settings allow it.
Exports and the Value Evidence Register: a Self-approved column says "Yes" and gives the reason. The register's summary sheet counts these entries and adds up their value.
The Board Brief: when any of the quarter's approved value was approved this way, the brief's caveats give the amount.
The audit log and the initiative's activity: the approval says the approver approved their own entry, and why.

Why the rule stepped aside is recorded when the entry is approved, because who else could have approved changes as people join and leave. Entries approved before Roiva recorded it are still marked, and their reason reads as not recorded. So are entries that someone who had changed their formula approved before Roiva began keeping those people off them, except in a locked month.

The mark doesn't stop anyone approving. If your auditors need a second person on every entry, keep a second Owner, Admin or designated approver in the account, and leave Allow people to approve entries they recorded off. Then the rule has no exception to make.

Approval settings

These are under Organization Settings → Approvals. Only an Owner changes the first three; an Admin sees them and can change the SLA. The audit log records each change with the setting before and after, so a control loosened and tightened again shows on the record, and the account's other Owners are notified of each one.

Auto-approve formula-derived value entries — off unless you turn it on. When it's on, entries calculated by a formula Roiva supplied (from a template, say) are approved automatically if they come from real readings, a person has already approved one of that formula's entries, and the amount is between half and double the last one a person approved. An entry that rests on a Roiva default, on a before-value Roiva estimated, on a share you credited to the initiative, on the share of an incident's time users were blocked, on a hand-entered volume from an earlier month, on a total a connection synced for an earlier month (spend, tickets or runs: most connections write a month only when it had some), on a figure read from several connections combined that's missing one that had a total the month before, on a time study's figure past its re-study date, on a changed unit or on a formula that doesn't adjust a count for its volume always waits for a person, and so does one calculated outside its initiative's signed measurement charter, one whose warehouse query has a new version since the last approval, and one dated in a locked month. When someone changes a formula's arithmetic, its entries wait for a person until someone who didn't change the formula has approved one calculated with the change. An approval by one of the people who changed it counts only when the rule stepped aside for them and the entry recorded why: nobody else could approve it, or the account allows people to approve their own entries. So do formulas you wrote yourself, amounts above the senior approval threshold and amounts far outside the initiative's planned figures always wait for a person. Auto-approved entries show Auto-approved as their status, and each one is recorded in the audit log.
Allow people to approve entries they recorded — turns off the rule against approving your own entries.
Senior approval threshold ($) — see above. Blank means no threshold for initiatives and value entries, while every budget increase then waits for the Owner (see Budgets and budget vs. actual).
Approval SLA (days) — approvers get a daily reminder, in Roiva and by email, about anything that has waited longer. Blank means three days. A value entry waits from when it was submitted, or from when a formula or a sync wrote it; a recalculation or an edit while it waits doesn't restart the count.

Roiva staff never approve anything in your account unless they are a member of it, and then only by these rules, like anyone else.

The initiative lifecycle — the stages an approval moves an initiative through
Adding costs and value entries — where value entries come from
How Roiva calculates value — which formula-derived entries auto-approve