The document went to the wrong person, or the receiver is away

Once you have sent a document, you cannot take it back or send it to someone else yourself: the document is with the receiver, and only they or your user administrator can move it. There are four ways out. The receiver can reject it back to you with the red button, as long as they have not yet opened it for their step with the green button. Where your company has switched on forwarding for the step, the receiver can forward it to another possible receiver with the Forward button. If the receiver is away or has left, your user administrator can transfer the document to a colleague on the Ownership transfer page. If you sent it to an e-mail address outside ABMS, the link cannot be cancelled; see the last part of the steps. These ways out are the same in every standard document module, for example Avvik or Styrende dokumenter (your company’s own module names); which of them a step offers depends on how your company has set up the module.

Before you start

Find out who has the document now; see the first steps below.
Rejecting back needs nothing extra from the receiver: the red button is shown to the person the document was sent to, until they open their step with the green button.
Forwarding is possible only on steps your company has set up for it, and only after the receiver has opened their step with the green button. The receiver can forward to the people who could have received the step, not to just anyone.
Ownership transfer is done by your user administrator, who needs the Admin level on the Super area row; see The Users page and the rights table. The new owner must be an active user of the same company. The transfer does not give rights: the new owner needs the Edit right on the module’s row to work on the document, and the Approve right to publish it.

Steps: find out who has the document

On your dashboard, click Documents sent for approval (if your company’s dashboard has this box). A document you sent is listed there until the receiver opens it with the green button. In the full table, Sent to shows the receiver’s name, or the e-mail address for a document sent outside ABMS. See The dashboard.
If the document is no longer in that list, the receiver has opened it or sent it on. Open the document and choose the Log tab at the bottom of the document page. It has one line per step; the last line is the current step, and Workflow user shows who holds it.

Steps: the receiver rejects it back

Ask the receiver to open the document from the e-mail or from Documents awaiting your approval on their dashboard.
They click the red button, write a message and confirm; see Approve or reject a document you received.
The document comes back to you. Correct it and send it to the right person; see Create a document and send it for approval.

If the receiver has already clicked the green button, the red button is gone. Use one of the next ways instead.

Steps: the receiver forwards it

Where the step allows forwarding, the receiver opens their step with the green button and clicks the Forward button in the edit-mode button bar. See Edit mode: buttons, the send dialog, the required-fields dialog.
They choose the right person among the possible receivers of the step.
That person can accept the section or reject it back to the receiver.

Steps: your user administrator transfers the document

Tell your user administrator which document it is (its title, or its Id from the info panel (i)), who has it now, and who should take over.
Your user administrator opens Super > Ownership transfer, picks the person who has the document, ticks the document in the Documents panel, chooses the new owner and clicks Transfer selected. See Transfer ownership of a user’s items.
The new owner takes the step over exactly where it was: if the old receiver had not opened it yet, it appears in the new owner’s Documents awaiting your approval, with the green and red buttons; if they had, it appears in Your in progress documents.

Steps: you sent it to an e-mail address outside ABMS

Open the document and check the External view. Waiting for response means the link is still active at the address under Email.
You cannot cancel the link or change the address on it. The link stays valid for 14 days from the day you sent it.
If you sent the link from the document’s first step and you still own the document at that step, the External view lets you send the link again; with several receivers you can also send to new people. See Send a document to someone outside ABMS.
When the link has expired and has been deactivated (this happens once a day), the document is back in your Your in progress documents.

What you should see

After a rejection: you get an e-mail with the receiver’s message. A red box on the document shows who rejected it and their message, and the document is in your Your in progress documents. If it came back to its first step, you can also delete it; see Delete or archive a document.
After forwarding: you get no e-mail. The Log view shows the new person under Workflow user for that step.
After an ownership transfer: you get no e-mail; only the new owner gets one, “Items reassigned to you”. While the document still waits to be opened, Sent to in Documents sent for approval shows the new owner’s name, and the Log view shows them for that step.

Good to know

The receiver has left. Your user administrator cannot deactivate a user who still holds documents; those must be transferred first. If the person has left but their user is still active, the document waits with them until it is transferred. See Deactivate or reactivate a user.
No stand-in. ABMS has no out-of-office or stand-in setting that passes a person’s documents on while they are away. The document waits until the receiver acts or your user administrator transfers it.
The document is not moving at all. To work out who must act, see A document is not moving: find out who must act.