Add approval actions and staff-only fields

Keep internal review with the request it concerns. Staff-only questions can capture an assessment, reference or note while the workflow determines who needs to take the next action.

Separate the actions

Decide whether a person needs to review information, change a status, provide an answer, or sign. These are different tasks. A status change is not automatically a signature, and a signature is not automatically an approval decision unless the request's wording and process make that meaning clear.

For an employee request, the employee supplies the request details, a manager may record the review, and HR may provide an internal reference. Keep those roles distinct so the public respondent does not complete a staff-only decision field.

Prepare the staff step

1. Add or review the staff role in Setup workflow.
2. Give the role a recognizable name and supply the appropriate recipient.
3. Add the internal questions needed for that person's task and set their field permissions for the intended role.
4. Review the action choices and next stage available in the current setup.
5. Preview the public response and the staff task separately.

Keep the internal questions focused. If the reviewer only needs to provide a decision and short note, avoid duplicating the entire original request. Read-only request information helps the reviewer work from the same record.

Check permissions and notifications

Open the public link to confirm that staff-only fields are not presented as questions for the requester. Then inspect the task received by the staff member. Check which original answers they can view and which fields they can change.

Review notification recipients and content as part of this check. Private answers or internal notes may need field-level restrictions, especially in patient or employee workflows. Email summaries should contain only the information the recipient needs.

Follow the request through completion

Inspect the response after the staff action and confirm the expected next stage. Review the retained response and final signed PDF where one is generated; do not assume all staff notes belong in every recipient's copy.

Use collaboration for team access, signer assignment for addresses and roles, and privacy controls for sensitive answers. If the request does not advance, inspect the required action and actual stage before changing the process.