Initiate an ad hoc approval for a legal request or its attachment

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read

    • Initiate an ad hoc approval for a legal request or its attachments from a user or a user group.

    Before you begin

    Role required: sn_lg_ops.legal_fulfiller

    About this task

    As a collaborator added to a request, you can access and work on the request just as assignees can. However, you can't modify the Assigned to and Assignment group fields.

    Some cases where approvals can be requested for a legal request or its attachment include:
    • Approval for legal contract documents from stakeholders.
    • Ad hoc approval for a legal request that needs an authorization from the privacy team before it can be processed.
    You can assign these approvals to any user or user group in your organization who have the legal_user role. When you initiate an approval, the approvers receive an email notification and can review and act on the approval.
    Note:
    If a legal request or attachment already has a pending approval record, you cannot initiate another approval for the same item.

    Procedure

    1. Navigate to All > Legal Request > Legal Counsel Center.
    2. Click the list icon (List icon).
    3. In the Lists tab, open a legal request by selecting an option under Legal Requests.
      OptionSteps
      As an assignee
      1. Select the Assigned to Me option.
      2. Select a request to work on.
      3. If the request is newly assigned to you, select Start Work to start working on the request.

        The state of the legal request is Work in progress and the document is Legal review.
      As a collaborator
      1. Select the Collaborations option.
      2. Select a request to work on.
    4. In the Approvers tab, click Initiate Approval.
      You can also initiate an approval by clicking the more actions button (More actions button icon.) and selecting Initiate Approval.
    5. On the Initiate Approval dialog box, fill in the fields.
      Table 1. Initiate Approval dialog box
      Field Description
      Approval for Item that needs an approval.
      • Request: Get approval for the entire legal request.
      • Attachment: Get approval for an attachment in the legal request.
      Select attachment Attachment in the legal request for which approval is required.

      This field appears only when Attachment is selected from Approval for.
      Select document Documents attached to the legal request for which approval is required.
      This field appears only when Document is selected from Approval for.
      Note:
      The Document option in the list appears only when the external storage option is enabled on the intake form of the request type.
      Approval by Approval required at user level or user group level.
      • User: Get approval from an individual user.
      • User group: Get approval from a set of users. The Select user field is replaced by the Select user group field.
      Select user User or user group who must approve the item.
      Note:
      Users or user groups with the legal_user role are listed.
      • If you selected User in the Approval by field, select a user from whom the approval is required.
      • If you selected User group in the Approval by field, select a user group from whom the approval is required.
      Approval note Note for the selected user or user group.
    6. Click Initiate.

    Result

    Assigned approvers are added in the Approvers tab based on the following conditions:
    • If you selected User in the Approval by field, an approval record is created for the selected user.
    • If you selected User group in the Approval by field, an approval record for each user in the selected user group is created. Anyone from the group can approve.

    The assigned approvers get an email notification with a link to open the record for review and action.

    Note:
    • An attachment cannot be deleted after an ad hoc approval is initiated and is in the Requested state. To remove such attachments, either cancel the ad hoc approval request or obtain the approval first.
    • When you remove an attachment from a legal request, it also deletes the associated ad hoc approval records. A work note is posted with the deletion details in the activity stream of the legal request.

    The approval details appear under the Approvals tab on the Standard Ticket page.

    What to do next

    Approvers can review and approve or reject the requested item.