When a student submits a leave of absence application through the Graduate Studies SharePoint site the application data is sent through a workflow to the appropriate groups for approval.
If you are assigned an approval task in the leave of absence workflow you will be immediately notified by email. Generally, the tasks are assigned to a group like “Computer Science” or “Economics” and multiple people will be notified when the task is assigned.
Accessing Assigned Approval Tasks
You can access your assigned tasks via the Graduate Studies SharePoint site (
https://uwin365.sharepoint.com/sites/gradstudies). On the home page you will see two categories with tile buttons (see Fig 1).
Figure 1
The green button titled “Applications Needing Your Attention” will take you to a list of tasks that have been assigned to you, or groups of which you are a part.
Clicking on the task title (eg. “
A Leave of Absence has been submitted for…”) will open the task details page.
A simpler and easier approach is to access your tasks through your email notification (see Fig 2). Each time you or your group is assigned a task in the Leave of Absence workflow you will receive a notification.
Figure 2
Clicking on the blue link in the email will open a browser window and ask you to sign-in to the Office 365 portal, then take you to the task details page.
Accessing the Students Leave of Absence Form and Attachments
After following the instructions above to get to your task details page you have a few options. In the image below you will see a sample task details page with some red markup to indicate points of interest. Checking them in the following order is the best practice.
Figure 3
- The Related Items area is a copy of the student’s Leave of Absence application form. It is best to right click on these items and select “Open in New Tab” so that you don’t lose your place. This will allow you to flip back and forth to the students application form for comparison.
- The Edit Item button is the last step on this page. Clicking this button will bring you to the approval form for this student’s application.
Upon opening the “Related Items” link you will see the student’s completed Leave of Absence application. If the student has attached any documents to their application, they will be listed at the bottom of the copy of the application (Figure 4).
Figure 4
Comments from the previous approvers and all comments stored to be sent to the student will be available at the bottom of the copy of the student’s application.
*Note* If you need to attach any extra documentation to the student’s application, this is the place to do it. If you click the “Edit Item” button in the top left corner it will open the application in edit mode. From there an “Attach Item” button should appear in the top menu bar. Once you have attached your documents, click the save button and proceed on to approving or denying the application.
Approving or Denying a Leave of Absence
On the task details page (Figure 3). Click the Edit Item button in the top left corner of the page and you will be taken to the approval form.
The highlighted items in Figure 5 mark the points of interest on this page.
Figure 5
The Comments to Student box can be filled with anything you want the student to receive at the end of the process. Generally, you would be filling this out if there is a condition placed on the leave or if the leave is denied for any reason. This is your opportunity to give the student feedback about their application.
Comments to the Next Approver is a text field that is passed on throughout the approval chain. If you need to notify the Graduate Studies Office about a special case regarding this student, or a funding requirement, this is the place to do it.
Finally, the Approved and Rejected buttons at the bottom of the page are used to complete the task and advance the application. If you approve the form, it will move on to the next group/person in the workflow chain for their review. If you are the last person in the workflow, the student will be notified that the approval is complete. If you reject the application, the student will be notified immediately via email. Student directed comments from each approval step will be included in this email.
NOTE: All other items on the approval page should not be changed.