The system owner signs off, in writing.
"I spoke to him and he said it was fine" is not an approval. It is a memory.
An approval record with a timestamp
The problem
The audit asks who approved it.
The answer exists. It is in a mail thread belonging to somebody who no longer works here, and it cannot be produced. Until then nobody knew it would be needed.
- 01
The request
The owner gets a calendar invite, not an email. The request is an action with two possible answers rather than a paragraph they can skip.
- 02
The answer
Accept, decline or propose another time — all of them come back as an ordinary calendar response, from the client they already use.
- 03
The record
The response is written against the event: who, when, and what they said. It cannot be quietly edited afterwards.
- 04
Memory
Whoever was involved in a system's event is remembered for next time, so nobody has to rediscover who owns a system every quarter.
| Time | Who | What was recorded |
|---|---|---|
| 09:14 | Coordinator | Event created, invite sent to the system owner |
| 11:02 | System owner | Accepted |
| 11:02 | System | Approval recorded against the event |
| 16:40 | Coordinator | End time changed, updated invite sent |
The record survives deletion of the event. That is the whole point.
The approval needs no new tool at the owner's end.
- Exchange and Outlook
- Active Directory
- The audit log
A row in the audit trail
Who approved, when, for which event, and what has changed since. It is the row §98 asks for, and it survives the event being deleted.
Show us your worst window.
Bring the one that keeps slipping. Thirty minutes, your estate, no slides.