In TiM, if you are granted the Permission to "Approve Startwork as:..." a Production Accountant, UPM, AUPM, Production Supervisor, Line Producer, or Studio Exec, you are considered an "Upstream Approver."

This is because in TiM, the approval process always starts with the Startwork Gatekeeper, who is always the first person to review packets. Once the Gatekeeper's review is complete, Startwork is passed to Upstream Approvers. 

Upstream Approvers cannot approve Startwork until the Gatekeeper's review is complete.

How to approve Startwork as an Upstream Approver:

In TIM, Startwork is approved from the Approval Pipeline:



If you do not see the Approval Pipeline on your Project dashboard, it means you have not been granted the proper Permissions. Reach out to someone already connected to the Project to assist you, or Contact TiM Support.

• From your Project dashboard, select "Approval Pipeline."
  • By default, the Approval Pipeline is sorted by packets that are pending your review first. 
  • Any packets that are ready for your approval will have an "Approve" button next to it. 
    
    
    
    
• Click the "Approve" button to access the packet in order to approve it.

Approvers are first shown an outline of the employee's Employment Details.

If all Employment Details are correct:

• Select "Continue to Startwork."
• You are then shown the employee's Startwork documents. 
  • The yellow highlighted thumbnails indicate pages that require your Approval Signature. When all signatures are completed on a page, the thumbnail changes to green.
• Click "Next" and TiM will focus on the next page and spot that requires your signature.
• On the document page, click "Sign Here" then choose to "Place Stored Signature" which will apply your electronic signature, or "Sign Manually" which will allow you to draw a signature freehand.
• When a signature is complete, TiM will automatically move you to the next required signature. 
• When all signatures are complete, the "Next" button will change to "Approve Packet." Click "Approve Packet" to finalize your approval step. 

If Employment Details need to be edited:

NOTE: Only a Startwork Gatekeeper can edit Employment Details and bounce Startwork directly back to an employee. If the Startwork has passed Gatekeeper review and an Upstream Approver discovers that the employee's Employment Details need to be edited, the Upstream Approver must bounce the packet back to the Gatekeeper first, to allow the Startwork Gatekeeper handle editing the Employment Details. 

• Select "Send back to Startwork Gatekeeper."
  • "Send back to Startwork Gatekeeper" is available on the Employment Details screen or from the packet view:
    
    
    
    
• A pop up will appear, to prompt you to enter a note to tell the Gatekeeper why the Startwork needs to be revised. 
  • This note will appear on record in the employee's History (the History is displayed above the "Send back to Gatekeeper" button).
• Click "Send back."
• The "Approve" button will disappear, the packet will return to the Startwork Gatekeeper review step, and a Flag icon will appear to show that the Startwork needs to be corrected. 

Pro Tip:

• Approvers can apply internal notes on Startwork packets using the "Add Text" tool.
  • These notes will appear in blue font on the Startwork PDF to any Approvers or anyone the Startwork is exported to.
  • Employees are not notified if notes are added to Startwork, but if notes are applied and then the packet is bounced back to the employee, the notes will be visible to the employee.