Take the guesswork out of document approval workflows by creating delegation rules. Delegation rules allow teams to replicate their organisation's delegation of authority, and ensure that the right people within your organisation approve and sign different contracts at the right time.

Only those roles with app access to Custom questions & delegation rules will be able to access this page.

Step 1. Navigate to the Settings menu. From Custom questions & delegation rules, select the tab labelled Delegation rules.

You will have an extra tab on this screen if you use the Request Legal Support app, and can click here to manage custom questions for matters instead.

Step 2. Click Create delegation rule. The resulting page will allow you to list your delegation rule conditions, reviewers, approvers and signers.

Step 3. Name your new rule. The rule title should be something descriptive that provides enough detail to easily distinguish between your different rules if you need to edit anything later.

Perhaps consider the requirements for that rule first and let that dictate the name, for example:

Step 4. Add conditions for your rule. Select a condition from the dropdown list that should be met to initiate this rule. The available conditions are:

You can also click Add condition to create additional sets of conditions, using and/or logic to combine certain conditions as well.

You can add as many conditions as you would like, however note that only one combination of and/or can be used per condition group. To combine sets of And/or conditions, you might like to Add condition group.

You can also Delete condition group when unneeded.

Step 5. List whether your workflow should be editable by all users after creation. Delegation rules enforce at a minimum who needs to review, approve or sign a document. Therefore, whilst end-users will be prevented from removing the individuals that have been defined in a delegation rule, they may continue to add additional reviewers approvers and signers to these rules where additional action is required for a given document. They can do this right up until that document has been uploaded into the platform.

Once that document is uploaded into Plexus, you have a greater say in just how editable that document's workflow is for the rest of the flow. You can control this from the next section of your delegation rule set up.

If the Workflow stages edit toggle is turned on, any internal user with base access to the file will be able to edit your templated workflow once it's in the platform.

If this toggle is turned off, only accounts with the owner role will be able to make such changes.

Step 6. Define your review stage. We'll then ask you how you'd like to define your reviewers. Choose your desired option from the dropdown list.

There are three options for templating the review stage:

Step 6. Determine whether review is mandatory. If review is mandatory for your document, you can enforce it ensuring that the Review mandatory toggle is on.
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Step 7. Nominate approvers and signers. Nominate the full names and emails of all approvers and signers. There are two options for templating the approve and signing stages.

The two options are:

Step 8. Review your requirements and click Create delegation rule.

You can repeat these steps to add as many delegation rules as you would like.

You can edit your existing delegation rules by clicking the Menu icon under the column for More. Then click Edit.

From the resulting page, you'll be able to edit all details about your delegation rule. Click Save at the bottom of the screen once you are happy with your changes.

Note that if there are any empty workflow stages within your delegation rules as a result of a deleted or inactive user, we will show a red icon to highlight where your delegation rules need to be amended.

You can prioritise your existing delegation rules by clicking the Menu icon under the column for More. Then click Move up or Move down in accordance with the direction that you would like to change the priority for your rule.

You can also drag and drop each row to re-prioritise your rules.

The priority field is most important when you have multiple rules which utilise similar conditions. The highest priority item will initiate when the condition(s) are met, and lower priority items may be ignored, depending on how your rules are prioritised in the list. For example:

If I have a sales agreement that is over $50K in NZD, your delegation rules would:

In this instance, the 2nd priority item has not listed a currency, and therefore the rule listing the Australian sales manager has taken priority. This is incorrect.

Ideally you'd need to take one of two routes to ensure that the correct rule is initiated in future.

Option 1. Ensure that Rule 2 makes it clear that the document lists $AUD as a currency

Option 2. Swap the priority so that the third rule is initiated prior to rule two. The $NZD currency rule will be initiated first and the correct approver will be applied to the rule wherever $NZD is selected as a currency. The Sales Agreement document type then acts as a fallback rule for any documents that do not include the $NZD currency.

Reach out to your Adoption Expert for the best ways to maximise your delegation rules.

You can delete your existing delegation rules by clicking the Menu icon under the column for More. Then click Delete.

Click Delete again to confirm your decision.

New rules

New rules were released in March 2022 and allow you to combine up to 3 different delegation rules when populating the reviewers, approvers and signers for your documents.

Legacy rules

If your delegation rules page features a legacy rule type, then at least one of your delegation rules were created before the 30th of March 2022. Any rules with the Legacy label will be ineligible for rule combinations and can have a maximum of one Legacy rule applied per document.
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If your organisation still uses legacy rules, any rule that you create from now on will be classified as a New rule on your delegation rules list.

Note that if you don't have a rule type column in your Delegation rules list, then assume that all of your rules are New and you will be able to combine your reviewers, approvers and signers across different delegation rules if required.

Legacy rules logic once allowed Plexus to search through the entire table of rules, until it found a rule that was an exact match. Legacy rules allowed a maximum of one delegation rule to be applied to a given document.

Plexus then introduced new logic for any rules created after the 30th of March 2022. For new delegation rules, documents can have up to 3 rules applied at a time. This change allows teams to simplify the process of implementing their Delegations Matrix into Plexus. It provides for a greater combinations of delegation rule sets, and allows teams to achieve their delegation rule outcomes with a smaller set of rules.

With the new logic, if a document matches the required conditions and defines only the Review and Approval stage of the workflow, the system will continue to check down the delegations table until it finds a Signing rule that matches your conditions. It will then combine the two rules together to provide a Review, Approve and Signing workflow.

What happens to my legacy rules?

Legacy rules are here to stay if you want them to. If you're happy with your current delegation of authority settings, the old rules will continue to adhere to the previous logic and there will be no change.

Any new rule that you create from this date will adhere to the new logic.

Need help with your Approve and eSign Settings? Talk to us via Live Chat or e-mail us at [email protected]