Collavate Releases New Group CC and CC Features

After you have used Collavate to obtain departmental approval for a request, it is very often necessary to provide other departments with notice of the approval.  


For instance, once you have received approval for a purchase request from your department, you need to then forward the approval to the finance department so that they can then process your request and make payment for the purchase.  


You may also need to provide a copy of the approval to your administrative department for recording keeping purposes.  
Previously, Collavate did not have a way to unify all of these processes into one single process. 
Users of Collavate had to print out approved documents and literally bring them to the finance department and/or the administrative department.  


It was very inconvenient and time consuming; and keeping track of records was burdensome.
Now, with Collavate’s newly released “Group CC” and “CC” features, you can easily integrate all of these processes and manage your documents and records with ease.  


The Group CC feature allows you to obtain  confirmation that the approved document has been received and will be acted on by the other department, and the CC feature allows you to simply notify someone of the approval.
These features were only available in the Classic UI version of Collavate.  Now, through this release, users of Collavate’s new, default UI can enjoy these very important features.
<Screenshot 1: design Group CC and CC recipient in Collavate’s popup.>
1.  Group CC
a.  What is Group CC?
When you want to get confirmation of receipt, not an approval, from other teams for the documents that have already been approved by your team, you can add the other team’s Google Apps Group Email address in the Group CC tab.  


Upon receipt, the other department will click approved to confirm that they have received the approval, and then they can assign the document to someone within this other department for follow-up.  


So, the goal of Group CC is to make sure that the other team follows up on what has been approved by your team.
b.  How Do I Use Group CC?
Please refer to #1 in the screenshot above. Click on the Group CC tab in Collavate’s popup window and enter the Group Email address into the space provided. (Caution: The Group Email address should be created as a Google Groups in your domain and registered in your Google Apps Admin’s Organization Chart.)
c.  How Do I Process the Group CC Once Received from the Approving Department?
Once a document has been fully approved by the approving department (the department generating the Collavated document), an email alert is automatically sent to the department listed on the Group CC. 


The first person in the “receiving” department clicks on the link contained in the email.  
This will open the approved document and also a pop-up window with three tabs: Approval; Group CC and CC.  


The Approval button allows you to see who in the “sending” department has approved the document.  The Group CC button confirms whether the document is or is not a Group CC document, and the CC button shows all of the persons, if any, who are just copied on the document.   
Any person receiving a Group CC alert can click on the link provided in the email to begin the Group CC process.  Once you have confirmed that an approved document was sent to you as a Group CC, you click on the Group CC button and the pop-up screen elongates and a Start Reference button appears. 


Clicking on the Start Reference button opens a window that allows you to type in the persons to whom the approved document should be shared.  If you are the only person in the department, or you want to add your own confirmation, then you would type in your own email address.  


The “referenced” person then clicks on the Confirmed button that will appear when the document is opened to confirm that they have received the approved document, and this confirmation is sent to the “sending” department to confirm that the “receiving” department has received the approval and that it is being processed..
<Screenshot 2: Begin Group CC Process in Collavate’s Pop-up>



In the screenshot above, a Group CC process is begun by a person receiving the email alert by clicking on the “Start Reference” button (see #3 in the screenshot above).  This person can add members (see #4 in the screenshot above) that are in his group to get their confirmation (not approval).  


If he would like to provide his own confirmation, he can add himself in addition to other group members.  After adding the persons in his department to the Group CC routing list, the person can begin the Group CC process by clicking on the Reference button (see #5 in the screenshot above).
<Screenshot 3: Confirm that You Saw the Document in Collavate’s Pop-up>
As the Group CC process begins, the next person who needs to provide confirmation will receive an alert email message.  By clicking on the link provided in the email, he can provide his confirmation (see #6 in the screenshot above).  


After the Group CC confirmation process is finished, the time and comments are recorded (see #7 in the screenshot above).  Caution: when there are more than one group emails in the Group CC tab, only one group can create a Group CC process at a time.



2.  CC.
a.  What Is a CC?
The CC feature allows you to add an email address on the CC tab when you want to notify a person or a group of a document approval.  No reply or further action is required of the recipient.  


The CC feature is very much like a “cc (carbon copy)” in a traditional letter in that it shows the persons that are receiving a copy of the document.  This feature will be very useful when you do not need an approval or confirmation, but you want to alert a person or group of an approved document.
b.  How Do I Use CC?
A person submitting a document for approval can enter the email address of the person(s) that need to receive notice of the approval (see #2 in Screenshot 1) in the CC tab of Collavate’s popup.
c.  Receiving Notification.
After final approval of a document is done, members in the CC tab will instantly receive a notification email.  Such members are able to view the document fin addition to the approval information related to the document.  Also, if the person is a Collavate user, then s/he can visit the Process -> Reference tab to view all of the documents that s/he has been notified about.





3.  Viewing List of Approved Documents.
Although members of a Group CC or CC will receive an email alert regarding the approved documents, they can also visit the Process-> Reference tab if they would like to view a list of approved documents.
<Screenshot4: Listing Documents in Process -> Reference Menu>



4.  Printing Group CC/CC Information as a PDF Document.
If you choose the “Print/Download as PDF” function, approved document will be printed as a PDF document, and the Group CC and CC and Approval information will also be printed in a table format and as a separate cover sheet.  Please refer to the example provided above.

Thank you.