Manage Pending Training Requests - Manager/Approver
Managers and approvers can manage pending training requests from the View Pending Requests page.
Design Note: An updated interface is available for this page, which can be enabled by administrators in Feature Activation Preferences. With the new design, the functionality of the page is unchanged. The new interface will be automatically enabled in all production portals with the Q1 2024 Release along with a reminder of about the deprecation of legacy UI page's timeline. The customers will still have the option to disable them. With the Q3 2024 Release, the new interface will be permanently enabled in all production, stage, and pilot portals and the legacy user interface pages will no longer be available.
The View Pending Requests page can be accessed in the following ways:
- Go to Manage Pending Requests link. . From the Manage Employee Learning page, select the
- Go to See Pending Requests Report. .
- Go to the Welcome page and click the Approve Training link in the Your Inbox widget. Note: The Your Inbox widget must be enabled for the portal by the administrator.

PERMISSION NAME | PERMISSION DESCRIPTION | CATEGORY |
Approve Training by Approver | Grants ability to approve training requests of those for whom the user is the designated approver. | Learning |
Approve Training by Cost Center Approver | Grants ability to approve training requests of those for whom the user is the designated cost center approver. | Learning |
To manage training approvals on the View Pending Requests page:
- Find the pending request you wish to approve, defer, or deny.
- Click the Approve
, Defer
, or Deny
icon under the Options column.
- If a training purpose with a category that requires a two-step process is associated with the LO, the Purpose column displays. The category must be selected in the Select Category drop-down prior to approving or denying the training. If there is only one category configured for the training purpose, then the field is always pre-selected and read-only.
- The Approve/Defer/Deny Request page opens. Comments can be entered in the Comments box but are not required. Comments display in the Approval History section on the Training Details page of the user's transcript.
- For approvals and if applicable to your organization, enter a percentage in the Employee pays by credit card field.
- Click
- If an external training requiring completion approval is also associated with a certification that has the Delegate the approval process of external training to user's manager option selected, then you are taken to the Certification Approval Requests page. See Certification Requests - Managers.
. - On the user's transcript, the status that displays is dependent upon the option the manager or approver chooses from the Options column.
Session Approve/Defer Attempt After Registration Deadline
When acting on a session approval request, approvers are prevented from approving or deferring a session request when the session registration deadline has passed. This applies to both traditional classroom and virtual classroom sessions but is not applicable to vILT sessions.
Note: Deferring requests is only available in portals for which it is enabled by a backend setting.
The request will need to be denied on the View Pending Requests page.
If you are attempting to approve the request on the Approve Request page, a message displays to indicate that the registration deadline has passed for the session and that it is too late to approve the request and it also cannot be deferred. The request will need to be denied on the View Pending Requests page. The user can then request or be assigned to another session.
For sessions that require more than one approval level, all approval levels must approve a request prior to the registration deadline, or the request cannot be approved (i.e., Manager Approver approves the request before the registration deadline, but Indirect Manager Approver does not. The request cannot be approved).
Helpful Hints - Training Approvals
See Approval Workflow Overview.
When Approval is required for training, the approval is routed in the following manner:
- If a training purpose with conditional approvals is associated with the LO and the LO does not have a predefined approval workflow, then the training purpose approval workflow is followed.
- If there are no categories associated with the purpose and the LO requires one approval, then the status of the LO for the user is Approved if the manager is defined as an approver.
- If a category is associated with the purpose and the LO requires one approval, then if the manager is defined as an approver, the manager is required to select a category on the approval page for each assigned user before the status of the LO on the user's transcript is Approved.
- If the approver selects a category that applies a conditional approval, the system adds the conditional approval upon completion of the current approver's approval or denial action. Conditional approvals defined for a category are only applied upon the approval or denial made by the first approver and cannot be reapplied by a second approver even if the category is changed. However, if an approval is deferred by the first approver, then the second approver acts as the first approver when applying conditional approvals.
- For Initial requests, the training purpose is read-only, and category is a required field. For Completion requests, the training purpose and category are read-only.
- When training is deferred, the request is sent to the next approver in the Approval chain.