Single Acknowledgments vs. Recurring Acknowledgments

Issue/Objective

To understand the difference between Single Acknowledgments and Recurring Acknowledgments

Environment

PolicyStat

Procedure/Resolution

Important points of differentiation:

• Single (one-time) acknowledgments are different from recurring acknowledgments.
• If recurring acknowledgments are assigned, this means that a background process will keep assigning single (one-time) acknowledgments to a user for versions of the policy that they have not yet acknowledged and have had changes made to the body content.
• If the resulting one-time acknowledgment is removed/unassigned, and the recurring assignment is still in-place, the one-time acknowledgment will return, as that assignment/process is still working to keep acknowledgments up to date. 
• Changes in the properties page, the document title and attachments alone will not trigger the recurrence whether done by override or a new version of a document created.
• If a new version is approved, but no changes occur on the actual content, it will not trigger the recurrence to acknowledge.
• To trigger the acknowledgment when only the attachment or other properties get changed, add a section at the bottom of the content such as, "Last Revised: mm/dd/year" and then update it each time there is a change.
• A recurring acknowledgment will only be triggered after a new version of a document is created and has changes made in body content.  The assignment is triggered when the final approver completes their approval as will be recorded in the document history.

Acknowledgments are assigned as single acknowledgments by default. When a user acknowledges a policy, they are not required to re-acknowledge any subsequent versions.

Recurring acknowledgments mean that each time a new version is created (i.e. - completes an Approval Workflow), assigned users will need to return to PolicyStat to review the changes and re-acknowledge the policy. If there are no changes to a policy or document, an acknowledgment will not be triggered

To assign acknowledgments as recurring, check the box just above the Assign Acknowledgments button.

Administrative Overrides

If minor changes are made as part of an Administrative Override (e.g. - typo corrections, modify properties, etc.), this does not create a new version and recurring acknowledgements will not be assigned.

Was this Acknowledgement Assigned as Single or Recurring?

Once acknowledgments are assigned, users who have ownership permission for a policy (Owner /Area Manager /Site Administrator) can also view incomplete acknowledgments assigned to a policy.

1. Open a policy for which ownership permissions are assigned and scroll to the bottom.
2. Locate the section titled Recurring Acknowledgments and click the + symbol to expand.
3. The list of users and/or user groups who are assigned recurring acknowledgments for this policy are displayed. If the acknowledgment is a single, one-time acknowledgment, names of users or user groups will not appear.