What approval claims
What pressing Approve asserts, who relies on it, and how to tell whether anybody read anything.
What a Signature on a Timesheet Asserts
Approving a timesheet is a factual claim made by a named person about a week they did not watch. Most approvers have never been told what the claim is.
The Approval That Is Never Refused
A control with a refusal rate of zero is not a strict control. It is an absent one, and the refusal rate is the only number that tells you which you have.
Nine Seconds: Reading the Approval Timestamps
Every workflow records when a timesheet was submitted and when it was approved. The interval between them is the cheapest audit available and nobody runs it.
Approval Is Not Verification
Workflows fail because they promise a check nobody can perform. Naming the smaller thing the approver can honestly do makes the control real.
What the Approver Is Answerable For
Where the approved hours go, who relies on them, and which of those reliances can come back to the person whose name is on the approval.
Select All, Approve
Bulk approval is the feature that empties the workflow, it is in every product, and removing it is usually the wrong answer. What to do instead.
When the System Approves on Your Behalf
Auto-approval rules fire quietly, attribute the result to a human, and are almost never reviewed after the week they were switched on.