Today’s workplace is remote, distributed, and constantly shifting, which means a flexible workflow solution that gathers internal signatures efficiently is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s table stakes, regardless of a company’s size.

At most companies, even when documents are fully electronic, approval routing often isn’t. Instead, documents are emailed out for approval or a shared spreadsheet tracks approval sign-off. In either case, more often than not, “signing” means pasting in a JPEG of a signature (very insecure), with the initiator of the document coordinating the flow from one approver to the next until approval is complete. This manual shuffle persists largely because implementing an internal workflow solution has historically meant custom templates and complicated setup.

It doesn’t have to work that way. Veladocs is introducing a modern, flexible approval interface built directly into the platform, so approval becomes part of how your documents already live and move.

What we’re solving for

A few things matter most to us as we build this:

• Fit the process, not force one. Every organization’s approval chain looks a little different. The roles involved, how many steps, and who signs off should all be configurable, not hardcoded.
• Visibility means specifics, not a single flag. Knowing a document is “in approval” isn’t useful. Appropriate stakeholders should be able to see where it stands: who’s holding it, who’s already weighed in, and who’s still ahead in the queue. That visibility is what makes it possible to catch bottlenecks before they become real delays.
• Keep people informed without making them ask. Approvers get notified the moment a task lands in their inbox. Initiators hear as soon as a document clears approval or gets rejected back to draft. Nobody has to log in and check just to find out where things stand.
• Don’t let a workflow get stuck on one person. Work should be easy to reassign or hand off when someone’s out or overloaded, so a single unavailable approver doesn’t stall the entire process.
• Provide flexible sign-off options. Some electronic signatures require users to reauthenticate before approving; other times, minimizing clicks matters more, so reauthentication can be skipped. Some organizations would like to utilize digital signatures. And some document processes still require a wet-ink signature. Veladocs is built to support all of these.

How it works

The capability is built around three roles, which map naturally to how approval actually flows through an organization:

Someone has to start the process. An initiator takes a document, or a batch of related documents, out of draft and sends it into review, defining approval roles, who needs to weigh in, and in what order.

Once the workflow process has started, the documents move to the people actually making the call. Approvers work from an inbox of tasks assigned to them, reviewing each item and either approving or rejecting it. Rejection sends the document(s) straight back to draft, so downstream approvers never waste time reviewing something that has already been sent back for correction. We’re also building in a “next up” prioritization that surfaces the task most likely to need attention first, rather than leaving someone to guess which item in their queue is most urgent.

And someone needs a view above the individual task level. Administrators get a reporting view into how approvals are actually moving — where things are flowing well and where they’re stalling, including the ability to reassign work when someone’s out of the office or overloaded. Just as important, administrators can configure the roles involved and adjust how the system flags aging tasks, so the process reflects how your organization actually operates rather than a generic template.

On the signature side, we’re supporting more than one way to close out an approval: full eSignature capture (with reauthentication either required or suppressed, based on a setting chosen by the workflow initiator), and a simpler upload-your-signed-copy option allowing for both digital signatures and wet-ink scanned signatures.

Veladocs.flow fits the document and the process, not the other way around.

Just the start

This is the foundation for a broader set of workflow capabilities we’re planning for Veladocs. Down the road, we’re looking at more flexible routing options, including parallel approval tasks and support for group-based approvals. This release is the starting point, not the finish line.

See it in action

Check out the videos below to see the experience described above. We’ve broken the walkthrough into four short videos, so you can jump to the role that matters most to you.

Note that the specific scenario shown in the walkthrough is illustrative. While the demo scenario focuses on document review and approval for a Nuclear Operator, Veladocs.flow can be configured for any organization’s approval roles and processes.

Overview (under 3 minutes)
A quick tour of Veladocs.flow, overviewing the initiator, approver, and administrator roles.

The initiator’s view (under 5 minutes)
See how a document moves from draft into the review and approval cycle, including how approval roles and order get defined. Also, see how initiators can keep track of documents while they’re in flight.

The approver’s view (under 5 minutes)
A look at the approval inbox, task prioritization, and how an approver processes tasks. Also, see a fully approved document with its signature page, added as part of the Veladocs eSignature.

The admin’s view (under 5 minutes)
See how reports and actions such as task reassignment are available to system administrators.

Interested in learning more?

If approval workflows are a pain point for your team today, we’d like to hear about it. Contact us to talk through your process and see a more in-depth look at Veladocs.flow.