Approvals
Decide on everything your team sends up to you, from orders to stock and sampling requests and travel plans.
/field/approvalsApprovals is a manager's inbox. Everything on it is waiting on you: orders to approve, requests to validate, travel plans to decide, and claims held because two of them look like one cost. Visits aren't approved, and dispatches aren't signed off, so they aren't here. You read your team's visits on Visits.
Who sees Approvals
Approvals appears in the sidebar for the Area Sales Manager (ASM), Deputy General Manager (DGM), National Sales Head (NSH), Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Administrator. Sales Executives and Assistant Territory Managers (ATM) don't have it.
What reaches you depends on the reporting line:
- You see records raised by people who report to you, directly or through someone else. A record raised by a rep under an ATM reaches the ASM above that ATM.
- You never see your own records. Your orders, requests and plans go to your own manager. If you try to act on one of your own, SalesYatra says so: "You cannot approve your own order — it goes to your reporting manager."
- The CEO sees their own reporting line. Only administrators see every record in the company, and an administrator can act on their own.
- A record with nobody above to decide it goes to the administrators, for example when a rep's manager has left.
How the two signatures fit together is explained on Approvals and the reporting line.
The queues
The tabs along the top are the queues. Administrators see two extra tabs for the final approval.
| Tab | What's in it | What you decide |
|---|---|---|
| Pending review | Stock, sampling and workshop requests waiting for a manager | Validate (naming who packs it) or Reject |
| Requests to approve | Requests a manager has validated. Administrators only. | Approve or Reject |
| To ship / conduct | Requests with both signatures, waiting for the warehouse or for the workshop to be held | Nothing for a manager. It shows who's packing it. |
| Partially shipped | Requests the warehouse has sent part of | Nothing for a manager. The rest is still owed. |
| Orders | Orders waiting for a manager's approval | Approve (naming who packs it) or Reject |
| Orders to approve | Orders a manager has approved. Administrators only. | Approve or Reject |
| To assign | Orders that cleared both signatures with nobody named to pack them | Assign to dispatch |
| Travel plans | Plans waiting for approval of the trip, or validation of the days | Approve or Decline, or Validate or Reject |
| Held claims | Pairs of claims that look like one cost claimed twice | Pay both, one, or neither |
Each queue lists one page of records at a time. You decide each record on its own: there's no approve-all.
Approve an order
Open the Orders tab
Each row shows the Order no., School, Bill to, Ship to, who Raised by, the overall discount off list price (Disc.) and the Value. Select the order number to read the whole order first. Dealer's order, under the number, opens the screenshot or PDF the order was raised from in a new tab.
Select Review
The row opens a decision form in place.
Check anything flagged
Two things are flagged in amber, because your approval decides them:
- New billing party: the rep typed a name that isn't on the dealer list. An administrator adds it to the list when they approve.
- Custom delivery address: the books go to a name and address the rep typed, not a school on the register. Check it before you approve, since you're the only check on where the company's stock is sent.
Choose who packs it
In Packed by, choose the warehouse employee who will pack the order. Approve stays greyed out until you do. The list holds the warehouse staff and the administrators.
Decide
Add a Note (optional) for the rep, then select Approve or Reject. Cancel closes the form without deciding.
Approving sends the order to the administrators for the final approval, and the rep is told. Rejecting sends it back to the rep, who can correct it and submit it again. You can make the same decision from the order's own page, with Approve order or Reject.
Validate a request
Open the request
On Pending review, select Review. The request opens with its progress strip, the titles and quantities asked for, where it ships and its history.
Choose who packs it
For a self-stock or school sampling request, choose the warehouse employee in Packed by. A workshop ships nothing, so it doesn't ask.
Decide
Add a Review note (optional), then select Validate or Reject.
Validating sends the request to the administrators for the final approval. Rejecting a request is final: the rep raises a new one if they still need the books. The rep is told either way. For how requests work from the rep's side, see Requests.
Approve as an administrator
The final approval is the administrators' alone. It goes to all of them, and the first to act decides it.
- Orders to approve shows who the manager named in the To be packed by column. Select Review, add a Note (optional), and select Approve or Reject. Approving releases the order at once to the named warehouse employee, who is notified. If the order bills a new party, approving also adds it to the dealer list (see Bill-to parties).
- Requests to approve opens each request with the line "Validated by the manager, to be packed by" the named employee. Approve hands a stock or sampling request to that employee, and makes a workshop ready to be held.
Administrators can also finish off the requests in To ship / conduct and Partially shipped. For a stock or sampling request, type the Ship quantities for each title and select Record shipment. For a workshop that has been held, select Mark conducted.
Dispatched orders
Nothing waits here once the warehouse has dispatched an order. Each consignment raises its invoice and emails it to the rep, with nothing for a manager to sign. If the warehouse was short, the order becomes PART DISPATCHED and the rest follows on the same order when the stock arrives. Once the last book has gone it becomes DISPATCHED. See Order lifecycle.
Assign or reassign the packer
The warehouse employee is normally named when the order is approved. Two cases need a manager or an administrator to step in, from the order's own page:
- Nobody was named. Orders in To assign reached the end of both signatures with no packer. Select Assign to dispatch to open the order, choose the employee, and select Assign to dispatch again.
- The wrong person was named, or they're away. On an order that's with the warehouse, select Hand to somebody else, choose the new employee, and select Reassign. This works until the order is packed.
Decide on a travel plan
A travel plan comes to you twice. The Waiting for column says which decision is due.
| Waiting for | What you're deciding | What the plan shows | Buttons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Approval | The trip and its budget, before the days are filled in | Who raised it, the dates and number of days, and the budget | Approve or Decline |
| Validation | The days and what they cost | Each day's travel type, city and schools; the number of working days and schools planned; the budget and the amount claimed | Validate or Reject |
Select Review on a plan to open it. If a plan reaches validation with no days filled in, it says so in amber. How plans are built is on Travel plans.
Links in approval emails
Every decision you're asked for arrives as an email and as a notification in the app. The first manager up the rep's reporting line who can decide it is asked, which means an ASM or above. If there's nobody, the administrators are asked instead.
The email's button opens the record itself. On a phone with the Android app, it tries the app first. Otherwise it opens this screen with the right tab chosen and the record open. If someone has already decided it, a notice says the item is no longer waiting on you, and the queue below shows what still is.
The Android app's Approvals tab covers orders, the final approval and travel plans. Requests are decided on the web portal only. See Approvals in the app.
If a decision is refused
| Message | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| You cannot approve your own order — it goes to your reporting manager. | It's your own record. | Nothing. Your manager decides it. |
| This order is not yours to decide — it belongs to another manager's team. | The rep isn't in your reporting line. | Leave it to their manager. |
| this order has already moved on — reload and try again | Someone else decided it first. | Reload the page. |
| Choose the dispatch employee who will pack this order before approving it. | Packed by was left empty. | Choose the warehouse employee, then approve. |
Requests are refused for the same reasons, with messages worded for a request.
Decide on held claims
The company pays for one vehicle once. When two people travel together, only the person whose vehicle it was claims the kilometres, and a shared taxi or hotel bill is claimed by whoever paid it. SalesYatra holds two claims from payment when they read the same odometer (within 5 km at both ends, on the same day) or carry the same bill file. Neither is paid until you decide. See Daily Expenses for what the rep sees.
A pair reaches the manager over both people. For two reps in your team, that's you. When one of the pair is you, it goes to your own manager, because nobody decides on their own claim. When the two are in different teams, it goes to the manager both teams report to, or to the administrators.
Open Held claims
Each pair shows what matched, for example "Both claims read 23,410 → 23,520 km on the odometer", and the two claims side by side: who filed it, Mobile or Web, the amount, the odometer readings, the note, and the photos (Bill, Start km, End km). A Mobile claim's readings were photographed by the app at the start and end of the day. A Web claim's were typed.
Choose who is paid
Under Your decision, choose Pay both — they are separate costs, Pay only one person's claim, or Pay neither. A claim already paid before it was held shows (already paid), and you can't refuse it: ask the accounts desk to recover the money.
Say why
When you don't pay a claim, write Why it is not being paid. The person whose claim it is reads it on their Daily Expenses.
Decide
Select Decide. Both people are told how their claim ended: PASSED FOR PAYMENT or NOT PAID.
If one of the two removes their claim first, the pair leaves your queue and the other claim is no longer held.
Related
Last updated on
Documents
Download the company's shared files, such as catalogues, price lists and training material, and upload new ones for all staff.
Team on the road
See when each person in your team started and ended their day, what their odometer read, roughly how far they travelled, where they were last seen, and the stops they made.