On rare occasions, it may be useful to subtract a specific Approval Messenger recipient’s contribution to the approval state of the assets they reviewed. In order to keep Approvals View up to date with the most relevant information, this recipient’s approvals data can be invalidated, removing it from the aggregated approval state.
The following steps will invalidate the approval information submitted by a specific Approval Messenger recipient, across all assets included in the Messenger. To reset all approvals for a specific asset, please see Reset Approvals.
The following steps detail the process:
1. Open the Messenger tab and select the appropriate Approval Messenger.
2. Open the recipients list in the Messenger Inspector and click the “More” button to review a list of the Messenger’s recipients.
3. Verify that the Approval Messenger for the intended recipient has been closed or expired. If the Messenger link is still active, expire it. (For more information, see Messenger Expiration Dates)
4. If the Approval Messenger has more than one recipient, check the box for any recipient(s) whose approvals need to be invalidated.
5. Click the “Invalidate Selected Approvals” button.
6. Provide a reason for resetting the approval state on the asset(s) and click the “Invalidate” button.
The approval information is invalidated regardless of the reason entered. The reason is logged in the asset’s history in case that information is needed in the future; it is not displayed anywhere else.
Approvals View
DF Studio’s Approvals View provides information about the approval status of assets that have been distributed using Approval Messengers. (For more details, see Approvals View.)
When approvals are invalidated, the approvals information submitted by the selected recipient(s) will be removed from the Approvals View calculation immediately. Accordingly, those recipients will be removed from the Approval Status section of the Asset Inspector’s Info tab. The approval state of the affected assets may not revert to “None,” since information contributed by other Approval Messenger recipients will remain active.
Asset History
Invalidating approvals will affect the related assets’ appearance in Approvals View as described above. It will not, however, remove the original approval decisions from the asset’s history. These remain viewable in the History tab of the Asset Inspector for each asset, and can be expanded to display which Messenger recipient submitted the decision and when.
Also recorded in the asset history will be the date and time the approvals were invalidated, which user performed the action, and the reason given (see step 6, above).
If necessary, the listing in the History tab can be filtered to display only those actions related to asset approvals. Click the filter menu and select “Approvals” to filter.