Building approval workflows

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Overview

An approval workflow is a reusable chain of sign-off steps, built once in Settings → Approval workflows and then attached to the actions that need sign-off in each module's approval rules. Steps run in order — the next step opens only once the one before it passes.

Creating a workflow

Click New workflow, name it (e.g. "Vendor onboarding"), and add steps. Each step defines:

  • Who can approve — any mix of: a specific person, anyone holding a permission, any org admin, or a relationship to the record being approved, like the cost centre owner of a requisition. Relationship routing means one workflow serves every cost centre and stays correct when owners change.
  • How many must approve — any one of them, all of them, or a set number.
  • Optionally a response window in hours, switches to require a reason when rejecting or a comment when approving, and a note shown to the approver.

The "Who can approve this today" panel previews exactly who each step resolves to before you save — a step that resolves to nobody would block every request, and the editor warns you in red.

Versions and editing

Saving publishes a new version. Requests already awaiting a decision finish on the version they started — your changes apply to new requests only, so editing a workflow never yanks an in-flight request out from under its approvers. By default a requester cannot approve their own request; there's a switch if you truly want to allow it.

A workflow that's still assigned to an action can't be deleted — unassign it in the module's approval rules first.

Related guides

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