What's the difference between a primary and secondary delegate (AKA: back-up or alternate)?

[Jennifer Bliss]

Primary Delegate: A signing official (i.e.: delegator) has turned over his/her full authority to a primary delegate. This is a long-term solution for signing officials who are delegating daily responsibility for reviewing+approving proposals to another person. The action requests and the action list reminder email only go to the primary delegate (not the delegator). So for example, if Christine were made Primary Delegate for Cindy, Cindy would not get any action requests or email notifications. They would only go to Christine.

Secondary Delegate: A signing official has designated alternate(s) who are simultaneously active. The signing official can still take actions AND the secondary delegate can as well. Action requests appear in the Action Lists of both the signing official AND the delegate. When either acts on the document, it disappears from both Action Lists. People often have a secondary delegate who takes care of their action requests when they are not available to do so (i.e. back-up approver).

NOTE: Delegates must update their Action List settings to get email notifications (Action List Reminders). For more details about this, see the post: I'm a signing official's back-up (alternate or delegate) and I don't get email notifications when I'm supposed to sign something.