Create a New Rule

A rule basically defines whether or not an action plan gets created based on defined criteria.

All parameters defined in a rule can be edited prior to any audits. Once you run audits against a rule and it triggers a corrective action plan, you can no longer edit the steps or create new steps that would change the current rule's approval process. Rather, you will need to create a copy of the rule and make the changes in the new rule.

There are several steps to creating a rule:

Create a rule (Summary tab)
Define the criteria for the rule (Criteria tab)
Define the approval steps for the rule (Approvals tab)
Define which personnel get notified when a rule is triggered and which template to use for notification (Notifications tab)
Define the settings for the rule (Settings tab)

To create a new rule:

Go to Action Plans > Rules.

The Approval Rules screen displays.
From the Actions droplist, select Create New.

The Create New pane displays.
Enter the rule name (required) and description (optional), then click SAVE.

The Rule Details pane displays.

To define the criteria used for a new rule:

Select the Criteria tab.

The Criteria tab displays as shown.

When defining the criteria, the following are some general guidelines:

It is not required that a rule contains a selection from all three of the criteria types (Form, Type, Location); however, for a rule to work, it must specify values for at least one criteria (Audit Form, and/or Audit Type, and/or Audit Location). For example, a rule which only contains a single audit form as the criteria will match all audit results used with this form, regardless of the audit type specified or the location selected.
A rule without specified criteria will not generate any action plans.
Rules should not overlap in specified criteria. At lease one element (form, type, or location) must be distinct from all other rules so that an incoming audit result would not match more than one rule. If the criteria is identical to another rule, the rule with the most recent modified date will take precedence.
Criteria may be edited even after the rule is in use; however, the new criteria should not overlap with any other existing rules. Any action plans that matched the original rule criteria when they were created can still be processed to completion, but no new plans will be generated based on the old criteria. The change is only effective for new incoming audit results.

Under the Audit Form category, click ADD.

The Add Audit Forms dialog displays.
Select the form(s) you want to add to the rule.

To select multiple forms, hold down the CTRL key while clicking on each form you want to select.
Click SAVE.
Under the Audit Type category, click ADD.

The Add Audit Type dialog displays.
Select the audit type(s) you want to add to the rule.

To select multiple forms, hold down the CTRL key while clicking on each form you want to select.
Click SAVE.
Under the Location category, click ADD or ADD BY MANAGEMENT.

If you clicked ADD, the Add Locations dialog box displays allowing you to add by locations.

-OR-

If you clicked ADD BY MANAGEMENT, you will see the Add By Management dialog allowing you to add locations by hierarchical management level. If locations are added using this method and the locations assigned to that Management change (a location added or removed), then the locations included in the criteria will also update to reflect the modification.
Select the locations you want to apply to the rule, then click SAVE.

To create approval steps in a rule:

Step creation is only needed if the action plans generated by the rule will be required to go through an Action Plan Approval process. If you do not have the CAM Approval process enabled, the Steps tab will not display. If you do not intend to use the Action Plan Approval process, then you can skip this step when configuring a rule.

Select the Steps tab.

The Steps tab displays.

If the ADD STEP button is not displayed, it means you have already run audits against this rule and you can no longer modify the steps in this rule. You will need to create a copy of this rule and create a new rule from the copy.

Click ADD STEP.

The Approval Steps displays.

The Role and User fields are optional, but at least one of the fields must have a selected value. As a recommended practice, using a role is the best option since the User(s) assigned to the Role may be edited at any time as needed. You may choose to have:

one or more users assigned to a specific role as an approver.
an individual user as an approver.
a role and an individual user both assigned as approvers.

From the Role droplist, select the role to which you want to assign approval responsibility.
From the User droplist, select the user to which you want to assign approval responsibility.
If you want the step's assigned approvers to be notified when they have an action plan to review, mark the Notify checkbox.
Click SAVE.
If you want to have multiple levels of approval triggered by this rule, click ADD STEP to continue to add additional approval levels.

Once entered, your Approval Steps may look similar to the example below.

In the above example, when an action plan that is associated with the rule has been submitted for approval, it will be placed in the Approval queue for each user assigned to the District Manager role. Only users assigned to this role will be able to see this corrective action plan at approval level 1. The same is true of the second level, only users assigned to the Store Manager role will be able to see this corrective action plan at approval level 2. Level 3 corrective action plan approvals will only be visible by users assigned to the Supplier Admin role. If we had added a specific user to one of the steps as well, then the role and the user would have access to review and approve the action plan.
If you want to reorder the steps in this section, click and hold the Drag-and-drop button in the right corner of the Approval Step, then drag the step left or right to the desired location, release, and then click SAVE.

Reordering the steps in the rule can be done up until audits have been run against the rule resulting in generated action plans.

To define action plan rule notifications:

Select the Notifications tab.

The Notifications tab displays.

The Notifications templates referenced on this tab will define the template for the correspondence text sent out with each notification. In order for a template to be listed and available to select on the Notification tab, the template must have a Template Type of "CAM". It is also highly recommended that the name of the template adequately describe the nature of the message and the purpose of the template.

For more information on creating and editing correspondence templates, see Templates.

Click EDIT.
Select the correspondence template you want used for an Approval, Disapproval, and Pending Approval notification type.

The selections in this tab will trigger the specified template to use to notify the current step's approver. See the Steps tab.

If you wish to send recipient notifications to users or groups that are not set up to be notified through the Roles associated with the Approval steps, you can add them to the template notification on this tab.

For the Approved, Disapproved and Pending Approval templates, click Add Recipients.

The Add Recipient dialog displays.

Available Recipient Types are as follows:

Audit Company - This is the primary contact for the audit company. System > Manage People > Audit Companies
Audit Result - Email back field in the audit signature/approval panel
Auditor - Auditor's User Profile Email field
Contact Group - This is an optional feature that is required to be enabled to display. System > System Setup > Contact Groups > Contact Profile Email Field for each included Contact in the selected Group
Location - Location Profile Email field
Location Primary Contact - This is the default, Location Profile > Contacts tab > Primary Contact Email field
Location Secondary Contacts - Location Profile > Contacts tab > Secondary Contact Email field
Management - Selected Management Profile Email field
Management Primary Contact - Selected Management Profile > Contacts tab > Primary Contact Email field
User - The users available for selection will be based on the logged in User's Managed Users List. System > Manage People > Users, select the logged in User, then click on the Managed Users tab.

From the drop-lists, select Recipient Types and Recipient Options, then click ADD.

The templates and recipient types will display.
Click SAVE.

The Rule Details screen displays similar to the one shown.
To create due date reminders, click CREATE NEW.

Enter the information in the Due Date Reminder fields.

In this example, the primary contact will be notified one day after an action plan due date has been missed. The CAM - OVERDUE template will be used for this notification.

Multiple Action Item Reminders can be created for a single rule. For example, an Admin would like a reminder to go out 30 days before an action item's due date, 7 days before the due date, 1 day after the due date, and 7 days after the due date. In this case, three Due Date Reminders would be created. You may also wish to have multiple recipient reminders. In this case, you can create a Due Date Reminder for each recipient.

The default Action Item Due Date Reminder is set to the location's primary contact. However, a reminder notification can also be sent to any associated recipient type contained in the droplist.

Available Recipient Types are as follows:

Audit Company - This is the primary contact for the audit company. (System > Manage People > Audit Companies)
Audit Result - Email back field in the audit signature/approval panel
Auditor - Auditor's User Profile Email field
Contact Group - This is an optional feature that is required to be enabled to display. (System > System Setup > Contact Groups > Contact Profile Email Field for each included Contact in the selected Group)
Location - Location Profile Email field
Location Primary Contact - This is the default Recipient Type. (Location Profile > Contacts tab > Primary Contact Email field)
Location Secondary Contacts - This option allows you to use a secondary email for the contact. (Location Profile > Contacts tab > Secondary Contact Email field)
Management - Selected Management Profile Email field
Management Primary Contact - Allows you to specify the primary contact for a management profile. (Management Profile > Contacts tab > Primary Contact Email field)
User - The users available for selection will be based on the logged in User's Managed Users List. (System > Manage People > Users, select the logged in User, then click on the Managed Users tab)

Click UPDATE.

If you are not receiving notifications, verify:

All applicable checkboxes have been checked (e.g., the Notify checkbox on an approval step).
Any user who would be eligible to receive the notification (e.g., an approver, or a reminder recipient) has a correct, and properly formatted, email address in their user record.
A template is assigned for the applicable notification.

To define the rule settings:

Select the Settings tab.

The Settings tab displays.

To modify the settings, click EDIT.

SAVE and CANCEL buttons are displayed in the Setting screen.

SETTING OPTIONS	DESCRIPTION
Approval Process: Restart On Disapproval	If this setting is enabled, a previously disapproved action plan will always enter the approval process at Step 1, when the plan is resubmitted into the approval process. If this setting is not enabled, the resubmitted plan will enter the approval process at the step in which it was last disapproved.
Editing & Display: Manual "Completion Date" Entry	The default program setting automatically assigns a completion date for an action item when the User marks the action item as Complete. By enabling this option, a Complete Date field is made available in each action item to allow you to manually enter the completion date for the action item and override the system-assigned, current date.
Editing & Display: Manual "Assigned To" Entry	Without this setting enabled, the application only allows the user to select an Assigned To value from the list of Contacts associated with the Plan's location. When this setting is enabled, a regular text box is made available for the Assigned To field into which you can manually enter any value. When manual entry is enabled, you can enter a manual value in the Assigned To field. This is useful if you want to assign it to a preferred group such as "Housekeeping" or "Facilities". When a manual entry is applied, the value entered into this field is not available as a Recipient for any action item reminders (see Notification System for Programs and Action Plan Rule Notifications).
Editing & Display: Edit "Due Date" After Approval	Enabling this option allows an admin with the permission (Action Plan: Edit Item Due Date After Approval) to change an Action Item due date after the Action Plan has been approved.
Editing & Display: Display "Internal Comments"	Enabling this option displays an additional text field in every Action Item for additional information. Users with the appropriate permission(s) will be able to view and/or edit the contents of this additional Internal Contents field depending on if one or both of the permissions is enabled for the user. This option requires the following permissions to be granted: Action Plan: View Item Internal Comments and Action Plan: Edit Item Internal Comments.
Editing & Display: Lock Due Date if set in Audit Form/Result	Enabling the Lock Due Date if set in Audit Form/Result setting locks the date from being changed in an Audit Result, when set by a form or priority. A user with appropriate permissions (Action Plan: Edit Item Due Date When Set from Choice), can disable this lock setting. Once disabled, a user can modify the date on an audit result. This setting is enabled by default. If the user doesn't have the date set through forms or priorities, this setting is invalid whether enabled or disabled in the Settings tab. See Corrective Action Plan Permissions.

All of these options can be turned on or off even if a CAM rule is in use.

Mark the checkboxes next to the settings you want to enable.
Click SAVE.