Once a user records a resolution for the investigation, the investigation must be approved. The purpose of this stage is to verify that the allegations, findings, and overall resolution entered are correct. The investigation approval stage gives an appropriate user, such as the investigation supervisor, the opportunity to approve or reject the findings documented by the user. This is important because these findings often dictate whether ongoing services should be provided to the client. For example, the investigation supervisor may not agree with a particular finding that the user has given to an allegation or to the overall resolution provided.
When a resolution has been recorded on an investigation, the investigation is submitted for approval and either approved or rejected. If the details recorded for the investigation and the recommended resolution are found to be appropriate, it is manually approved. If additional work is required or the resolution is incorrect, the investigation is rejected and returned to the user for modification. If the user has investigation approval rights as part of his or her security profile, or if the investigation supervisor submits the investigation for approval, the investigation is automatically approved.
Investigations submitted for approval have a status of submitted; approved investigations have a status of approved. If the investigation is rejected, it must be resubmitted in order to progress.
Note that some organizations may not require an investigation to be submitted to an investigation supervisor for approval. Investigations functionality can be configured to support approval check functionality which allows the organization to determine the percentage of investigations to be manually approved by a supervisor. See section 4.6 for information on setting approval checks.