Workflow transitions can accommodate product development processes that require multiple team members to approve documents. For example, a department may need a team lead and a member of the management team to both approve a change before the file can be promoted. In this Video Tech Tip, we look at parallel approvals inside a SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional vault. 

>> Click here to learn about parallel approvals inside a SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional vault. 

The vault administrator controls how many people and which specific users are required to participate, and a user has the availability to revoke their own approval if the situation warrants it. Your “Change State” RMB menu for a file and its “Do Transition” dialog will indicate if multiple users are needed to move the file forward. 

As always, you can add relevant transition comments for the file’s audit trail as well as notification comments for your teammates. The file history provides visibility of where the file currently stands in the workflow and how far along it is in the process.

If a file effectively needs two sign-offs to transition into the “Approved” state, then the parallel approval functionality may be an ideal addition to your workflow setup.

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