Workflow Authorisation
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      Workflow Owners Overview

      This article provides an introduction to workflow owners.

       Take Control

         Estimated Read Time: 4 minutes

      Sections in this article: 

      For background please read the Workflow Authorisation Overview guide.

      What are Workflow Owners?

      Workflow owners are the users responsible for completing reviews/actions/approvals on a dedicated workflow phase. Unless they have been granted other authorisation to the workflow, they will only be able to see, open, and perform actions on a card while it is on the phases they own.

      Each workflow phase has its own workflow owner, configured individually within the phase settings.

      Example

      The example below shows two different user views of the same Workflow:

      • The Workflow Administrator can see all cards across all phases.
      • The Workflow Owner, assigned to the Legal Review phase, can only see cards in that specific phase.

      Assign Ownership of a Workflow Phase

      There are multiple ways that owners can be assigned to a phase:

      Assign Dynamic Owners

      Dynamic Owners are automatically assigned to a card when it arrives at a workflow phase based on properties of the card. This is typically used when an individual needs to complete an action on a workflow card rather than a team. For example, if a contract is expiring, the system identifies the Contract Owner linked to that contract and auto-assigns them as the phase owner to review it.

      Depending on the authorisation type for the phase, you can select the following to be auto-assigned as a phase owner:

      • Team Manager of Card Creator - the owner of team that the person who submitted the card belongs to.
      • Vendor Owner - the vendor owner for the vendor record associated with the card.
      • Contract Owner - the contract owner for the contract record associated with the card.
      • Additional Vendor/Contract Owner Types  - the additional owner types for the contract or vendor record associated with the card.
      • First Vendor User Only - the first user added to the vendor record associated with the card.
      • All Vendor Users - any active vendor user from the vendor record associated with the card.

      See Workflow Dynamic Owner Authorisation for further details on how to assign owners dynamically.

      Assign Specific Owners

      Specific owners can be assigned during workflow configuration. You can select:

      • Card Creator - assigns ownership to the user who created the card or submitted the request form.

      • Users - select one or more specific users to own the phase.

      • Teams - assigns a specific team (or multiple teams). This is useful when responsibility aligns with existing Gatekeeper teams, reducing the need to create separate workflow groups.

      • Workflow Groups - select one or more workflow groups. These are custom groups of users used across workflow configuration, ideal for when ownership doesn’t align with a team but you want to avoid assigning users individually. See Assign a Workflow Group as a Phase Owner for details on how to configure this.

      • Form Fields - assigns ownership based on a user or workflow group selected in a form field. You can select which form field will determine ownership.

      Reassign Card Ownership

      You can reassign card ownership directly within a workflow card. To do this:

      1. Navigate to the relevant Workflow.
      2. Click on a card title.
      3. Click the pencil icon next to Phase Owner.phase owner
      4. Select from the Users, Workflow Groups, and/or Teams dropdown lists. You can assign multiple items, including a mix of types (e.g. one user and one team).
      5. Click Update to save your changes.