Contents

• Overview
• What Are Progress Report Approvals?
• What Happens After a Report Is Submitted?
• Step-By-Step Instructions
  • Find a Report in Approval
  • View a Report's Approval History
  • Add or Remove Approvers on a Report
• Related Articles

Overview

This article shows Program Admins how to track progress reports in approval and add or remove a report’s approvers.

🔍 Are you an approver? See ➡️Approve, Reject, or Request Revisions on a Progress Report (For Approvers) (coming soon).

What are Progress Report Approvals?

When progress report approvals are enabled in a cycle, each submitted report goes to one or more groups of approvers, who approve it, reject it, or request a revision.

• Approvers make the decision: Program Admins cannot approve, reject, or request revisions (the Admin Controls button will not appear on reports). Approvers make those decisions.

• Who can track and manage report approvals: Organization Owners, Client Admins, Program Owners, Program Managers

What Happens After a Report Is Submitted?

After an awardee submits a progress report:

1. Approvers in the first (or only) approval group receive it automatically and get an automatic email. The report's status changes to “Submitted (Pending Approval).”

   The “Progress Report Assigned for Approval” email is set up by default. To remove this email or edit the template, see ➡️ How to Manage Your Email Communications Setup + How to Manage Your Email Communications Template Library.

    

2. Approvers review the report. Each approver in the group can approve it, reject it, or request a revision.
    
   • ✏️ If an approver requests a revision: The status changes to “Revision Requested,” and the awardee gets an automatic email.
     • The approver who requested it cannot act on the report again until the awardee resubmits.
     • Other approvers in the group can still approve or reject the report, but they can't request another revision while one is pending.
        
3. The group reaches a decision
    
   • ✅ Approved:
     • If you have another approval group, the report moves to it, and those approvers get an automatic email.
     • If this was your last (or only) group, the status changes to “Approved,” and any disbursement that depends on the report can move forward. The awardee gets an automatic email that their report was approved.
   • ❌ Rejected: The status changes to “Rejected,” and the report stops. Later groups won’t get it, and the awardee can’t edit, resubmit, or reopen it. Any disbursement that depends on it can’t be initiated.

Step-By-Step Instructions

Choose what you want to do: Find a report in approval · View a report’s approval history · Add or remove approvers on a report

Open a Report in Approval

1. In the program, click the cycle name to open the cycle.
   
   
    
2. In the award cycle, click Progress Reports under the Post-Award section in the left-hand menu.
   
   
    
3. Find the report in the list. Reports waiting on approvers show the status "Submitted (Pending Approval)." Click the hyperlinked Report Name to open it.
   
   

View a Report's Approval History

1. In the program, click the cycle name to open the cycle.
   
   
    
2. In the award cycle, click Progress Reports under the Post-Award section in the left-hand menu.
   
   
    
3. Click the clock icon next to the report's status.
   
   

4. The Progress Report History panel opens on the right side of the screen. It shows:

   • Who submitted the report and when
   • A card for each approval group, with each group’s status and decision count (for example, “Decision needed: 1/1”). Click the dropdown arrow to show or hide details.
   • Each approver’s decision, with the date, time, and comment, plus any added approvers.
   • The final outcome, such as “Report Form Approved”

   
   
    

5. Click Cancel in the bottom-right corner to close the panel.

Add or Remove Approvers on a Report

You can add or remove approvers on a submitted report that’s already in approval. This doesn’t change your approval groups or other reports.

🔍 Need to change approvers for all future reports? Update your approval groups instead. See ➡️ How to Set Up Approvals for Progress Reports.
 

1. In the program, click the cycle name to open the cycle.
   
   
    
2. In the award cycle, click Progress Reports under the Post-Award section in the left-hand menu.
   
   
    
3. Click the hyperlinked Report Name to open the report.
   
   
    
4. Click Manage Approvers in the upper-right corner of the report.
   
   
    
5. An Approvals details panel loads on the right-side of the screen. It shows each approver in the group and their status. 

A. To add an approver: In the Approvals details panel, use the Assign approver dropdown to select the approver(s) you want to add. You can select more than one. Click Save in the bottom-right corner of the panel, then click Assign in the pop-up to confirm. 

• The approver receives an automatic email, and the report appears in their approvals list.
  
  

B. To remove an approver: Click the trash icon next to their name, then click Remove in the pop-up to confirm.

• The report is removed from their approvals list. They don’t receive an email.
  
  

Related Articles

➡️ How to Set Up Approvals for Progress Reports
➡️ Approve, Reject, or Request Revisions on a Progress Report (For Approvers) (coming soon)
➡️ Approve or Reject a Progress Report

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