# Show approval status as a document field

Give an approval process a system field — Approved, In Progress, Rejected at a glance in grids and results — including the enable-it-twice step everyone misses and an honest note on where the field can't be used.

Product: content-central · Versions: 7.x · Audience: catalog-administrator · Time: 15 minutes · Last verified: 2026-09-05

Canonical: https://help.ademero.com/content-central/workflow/show-approval-status-as-a-document-field

**At the end of this guide, every result grid can carry a column that answers the constant question — Approved? In Progress? Rejected? — per document, per process, without opening anything.**

The field's possible values, per document: **Approved**, **In Progress**, **Rejected**, **Removed**, or **Never Approved** (the document's type is on the process, but this document never entered it).

## Step 1 — Enable it on the process

In the approval process editor (**Administration** > **Catalogs & Document Types** > the type > **Approval Processes** > open the process), under **Options**, tick **Enable system field** and give it a **Name:** — the name becomes the column header, so `PO Approval Status` beats `Status` the moment a second process exists.

## Step 2 — Enable it again, for people (the missed step)

A new system field starts hidden from users. **Administration** > **Manage System Fields** ("Configure which system fields are available to users and their display order"): move your field from **Available Fields** to **Enabled Fields**, position it with **Move up** / **Move down**, and **Apply**.

Skip this and step 1 appears to have done nothing — the single most common outcome of this feature, now avoided.

*[Screenshot: Available on the left, enabled-and-ordered on the right: the second switch that makes a system field real for users.]*

## Step 3 — Put it in front of eyes

Each user adds the column where they want it — **Options** > the **Grid Fields** / **Results Fields** tabs — like any other field. Two scoping facts:

- The field is offered only to users who are **members of the process's document type** — others never see it listed, which is correct, not broken.
- One field per process: three approval processes that all need status columns means step 1 three times, with three distinguishable names.

## Where it works — and where it honestly doesn't

**Works:** as a column in results and grids — the at-a-glance use it exists for — and in [report templates](/content-central/reports-and-exports/create-a-report), where the **Documents by Approval Process** report type slices by exactly this status for the monthly numbers.

**Doesn't:** as a *search criterion* in the current interface — you can't filter a search by the status field itself. For "show me everything In Progress," the practical answers are sorting the column in a grid, the report above, or the Approval Queue views, which are that filter in permanent form.

**Success check:** run a document into the process and watch the column: **In Progress** on entry, **Approved** after the vote — and a document of the same type that never entered reads **Never Approved**, which is the value that confuses people until they've read this sentence.

## What's next

- [Set up an approval process](https://help.ademero.com/content-central/workflow/set-up-an-approval-process)
- [Create a report](https://help.ademero.com/content-central/reports-and-exports/create-a-report)