This isn't trivial but would be possible. This is me riffing and would need refining.

First of all, I would add tickbox fields for levels of signoff. ie. signoffA and signoffB and  signoffC.

Next I would use conditionals on the "workflow" XML file to modify it as follows.

In the main <flow> section, use a <when> condition to split behaviour for the 3 stages of the buffer to add additional stages to the end IF the user has the appropriate parameters. At an extreme level you can write a plugin function that takes the user and eprint as inputs and returns true if they have the right to approve it at stage a/b/c.

If signoffA is false and the user can approve level A on this EPrint, they see the levelA approve stage which has the signoffA tickbox on it and they can set it to true.

If signoffA is true, but  signoffB is false and the user can approve level B, the see the levelB approve stage which has the signoffB tickbox

Similar for signoffC.

The validation for publishing makes "signoffC" approval a required field so it can't be published without signoffC being set.

<flow>
  <stage ref="type"/>
  <stage ref="files"/>
  <stage ref="core"/>
  <stage ref="subjects"/>
  <epc:choose>
     <epc:when test="eprint_status='buffer' and !signoffA and $current_user{canSignoffA}'>
        <stage ref="signoffA" />
     </epc:when>
     <epc:when test="eprint_status='buffer' and signoffA and !signoffB and $current_user{canSignoffB}'>
        <stage ref="signoffB" />
     </epc:when>
     <epc:when test="eprint_status='buffer' and signoffA and signoffB and !signoffC and $current_user{canSignoffC}'>
        <stage ref="signoffC" />
     </epc:when>

  </epc:choose>
 </flow>

This is utterly untested but gives some ideas I hope. Documentation here:

https://wiki.eprints.org/w/EPrints_Control_Format

https://wiki.eprints.org/w/Workflow_Format

https://wiki.eprints.org/w/EPScript

It's possible to make custom EPScript functions to do more complex tests.

Hi all,

I'm currently evaluating EPrints as a replacement for an old repository 
(custom made). Until now everything worked fine (import of existing 
files and metadata), and I'm now trying to get the release/approval 
workflow configured. As far as I have read in the documentation, there 
are four stages by default:

inbox -> buffer -> archive -> deletion

I would need some more levels (and roles) in the approval workflow. 
Something like this:

inbox -> buffer1 -> buffer2 -> buffer3 -> archive -> deletion

Different roles in the hierarchy of the organisation should approve the 
submitted eprint in multiple steps. Is it possible to configure such 
behaviour in EPrints? Or can something like this only be implemented 
with some kind of plugin?

Regards
Johannes

-- 
Christopher Gutteridge <totl@soton.ac.uk> 
You should read our team blog at http://blog.soton.ac.uk/webteam/