Cover approvals while someone is away
Choose who decides someone's workpack approvals while they are on leave, see who is covering whom, and end cover early.
When an approver goes on leave, the workpacks and submittals waiting on their decision would otherwise sit until they are back. Approval cover names someone to decide in their place for the days they are away. You set it in the sidebar under Settings, then General, in the Approval cover section.
Anyone in your office team can set cover for themselves. Client, supplier and visitor users can't give or take cover. To set it for someone else, you need Manage members, which Owners, Admins and Managers have by default.
Set up cover
- In the sidebar, select Settings, then General, and go to the Approval cover section.
- Under Add cover, choose the Person away. Without Manage members, this is always you, and the form says "You can set cover for yourself. Ask an admin to set it for someone else."
- Choose who covers in Covered by.
- Choose the First day away and the Last day away. Both days are covered.
- Optionally add a Reason (optional), for example Annual leave.
- Select Save cover.
Assignar Pay shows Cover saved, and the cover appears in the list above the form. If the cover starts today, the person covering gets a notification saying who is away, until when, and how many of their workpack approvals are waiting.
Days follow your organization's calendar, not the time zone of whoever is looking. Cover runs from the start of the first day to the end of the last.
If the cover can't be saved, the message says why:
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| "Cover cannot start in the past." | Choose today or a later day as the First day away. |
| "The last day must be on or after the first day." | Move the Last day away to the first day or later. |
| "Cover can last at most a year." | Shorten the dates. |
| "This person already has cover for some of those days. Change or revoke that cover first." | Each person can have only one cover at a time. Revoke the existing cover in the list, then add the new one. |
See who is covering
Each cover in the list reads "[person] is away · covered by [person]", with its dates and reason underneath, and a status:
- Covering now: today is one of the covered days.
- Upcoming: the cover starts on a later day.
- Ended: the last day has passed.
- Revoked: someone selected Revoke. The cover stays in the list as a record.
End cover early
If the person comes back early, or the dates were wrong, select Revoke on the cover. Assignar Pay shows Cover revoked, and the cover stops at once. Revoke is on covers that are Covering now or Upcoming, for the person away and for anyone with Manage members.
Decide approvals for someone who is away
While you are covering someone, you can approve or reject their steps on workpacks and submittals exactly as they could, when it is their turn:
- Open the workpack and select Review & decide.
- The decision form says "You're deciding on behalf of [name], who is away. Your decision is recorded as made for them."
- Approve or reject as usual. See Get a workpack approved.
The step counts as the away person's decision. In the Approver chain it reads "Approved by [you] on behalf of [them]" or "Rejected by [you] on behalf of [them]", and the audit trail records it the same way. The person away can still decide their own steps while you cover them.
When a submittal reaches the away person, or someone replaces an approver with them, you get a notification too, for example "Submittal "[name]" is awaiting [person]'s review. You're covering their approvals, so it's with you to decide."
Cover is only for the approver's own steps. Replace, Record an offline decision and Override status still need the access they always do. Cover isn't passed on: if the person covering is away too, their own cover doesn't decide for the first person.