Previously, we've looked at a simple workflow for releasing and revisioning files from within SOLIDWORKS. In this tutorial, we'll show you how to release documents using an approval route which is more controlled and perfect for teams that have dedicated approvers within them. Those will be the only persons able to approve or release documents. Approvals can all be managed online through the browser interface of your 3DEXPERIENCE platform. We're using the Collaborative Designer for SOLIDWORKS dashboard that comes standard with the SOLIDWORKS Cloud Services. Alternatively, if you're a 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS user, you'll have a dashboard called 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS. They're accessed via the hamburger menu of the 3DDashboard app and both contain a tab called ‘My Data’, which we’ll use throughout this tutorial. This tab contains bookmarks to all of your files that are uploaded to the platform. Regardless of whether you're using the SOLIDWORKS Cloud Services or 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS, you'll have access to the Route Management app, which lets you create approval routes. Firstly, we'll add a new tab to the dashboard specifically for managing approval routes. Head to the compass in the top left. The roles & apps you see will probably look a little different to this, as it depends on what roles you've purchased. As we have a lot of roles, we'll do a quick search for “route” and drag the Route Management application onto the screen. Fitting it to the screen via the tab dropdown. This app lets us create routes and create route templates. For now, we'll just create the individual ad hoc routes. We'll cover setting up templates in a separate video. Looking at the My Data tab, we'll create a route for releasing an individual part and its associated drawing that are currently in the ‘In Work’ state. We want to be able to release these using an approval process and build in some control. Click on new route and give it a title. These can be automatically named by the platform, but it's easier from a management perspective to name it logically from the off. If you've got a template set up, you can search for it and use it here. We're not going to be using templates in this video, but we will add a description here. Under the advanced options, our route base purpose is to approve these files, so select ‘approval’ from the dropdown. Our completion action will be set to ‘Promote Connected Object’. This will ensure that the maturity state of the attached items will be promoted to released on completion of the route. In this case, those are our part and drawing files. The other settings in this properties tab can be left as default, so we can start adding our content to the route by searching or dragging and dropping it onto the route. We can navigate the dashboard tabs while creating the route and we'll go back to the My Data tab. Select both the power and drawing files and then drag them back into the Approval Routes tab, releasing the mouse when we're over the content box. Now we want to consider how the route affects the content. This is an approval route, so we want the target maturity to be ‘Released’ for both files. We'll leave the blocking maturity as ‘In Work’. You can add any related content to a route from documents and specifications to simulation results as well. Then, on the Tasks tab, we can think about the state is that this route will cover. So this is where a template would be used to standardize the process. But for now we'll just create this route ad hoc and set up a single stage approval. We'll click ‘Add Task’ and double click on the undefined task that appears. Our title is whatever task we want to be executed. In this case, approving the attached content. The expected action is for people to approve the content. Then we can add instructions to the approver and assign users or user groups to complete the task. Whomever you select here must be a Leader in the same collaborative space, but you can just select yourself for now. We can set due dates here as well and click ‘Apply’ when we're ready. Around the task, we have these plus symbols here that let us add additional stages. We could make this more complex with parallel approval, where you might want at least one of three or four potential approvers, or you might want multiple people to have to sign off on something. For now, we'll stick with our single stage and click ‘Start’ to alert the assigned person by a notification that a route has started and they've got something to do. Persons with assigned tasks can access the information through the Route Management app, where the content tab shows the associated content that requires actions. Members with visibility on the route are listed under the Members tab. The tasks within a route can also be viewed from the Collaborative Tasks app, which can be accessed from the compass or via the My Tasks tab of the dashboard. Opening the task, the attached content can be reviewed from within. Files can be previewed in 3DPlay, markups can be added, and the approver can leave comments all within the task. The dropdown in the top right of the task contains the buttons to approve or reject the files on approval. The task is marked as completed alongside the route itself, so when we check back in on the Approval Routes tab and refresh the app via the widget dropdown, we can see that our Cylinder Guard Release route is listed under the completed routes. Opening up the route, the maturity state shows that approving the route promoted the content to a released state, as we set out to do. Approval routes are useful to control how documentation and CAD files are approved and released in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. To really make the most of them,though, we can build out route templates to automate our workflow. Make sure you check out the next tutorial in the series to learn how to do that.