Updates to the Withdrawals workflow on Portico

The 2024-25 Academic Manual (published 1 September) includes the following update:  

• Faculty approval for a withdrawal is no longer required. Faculties will continue to retain access to applications and will have the ability to run reports on withdrawals in their departments, but the final approval will be with the Department.

In line with this update, the following changes will take place on 10 October to the Withdrawals workflow on Portico:

• Removal of the Faculty Approval stage from the workflow.
• PGR programmes will start to use the workflow.

Removal of the Faculty Approval stage from the workflow

The Faculty Approval step will be removed from the withdrawals workflow on Portico on Thursday 10 October.

Please note: Any Programme Withdrawal requests received before 10 October will still require Faculty Approval in order to progress to the “pending processing” stage: please ensure that Faculty Approvers are aware that they should continue to process requests until this date.  

From 10 October, the Faculty Approval stage will be removed and new requests will progress straight to the “pending processing” stage following Department approval. Any existing requests in Portico that are at the “pending Faculty Approval” stage on 9 October will be automatically approved and will move to the “pending processing” stage. Faculty users will continue to have access to view requests to leave their Faculty but will no longer be able to approve requests.  

PGR programmes will start to use the workflow

PGR programmes will start to use the Withdrawals workflow from 10 October. From this date, PGR withdrawal requests submitted via email will no longer be accepted. We are working with points of contact in each Faculty to ensure that PGR Faculty and Department users are set up on the workflow in advance and we will share guidance with them in advance. We will also update PGR student guidance and communications to reflect the new process.

Contact details for further information: examboards@ucl.ac.uk