What are the differences between manual and automatic approval flow / approval routing, and how do they work?
Linked Articles
- How do I tell if my account is using automatic or manual approval flow?
- Deeper dive into approval flow settings.
- How do I manage automatic approval flow?
- How do I manage manual approval flow?
Automatic Approval Flow
The automatic approval flow, also known as auto routing, is set on a per budget basis. The approvers for a request depend on the approvers set on the budget itself, and it works like a reverse waterfall. You can also create groups with the approval limits defined. For example...
Supply Budget : 2342 : Jan 2024
Approvers for the Supply Budget:
- John (limit of 1)
- Sarah (limit of 1000)
- Chris (limit of 1 000 000)
Any request that is raised is routed to John first, and then Sarah, since it's very unlikely that a request will be raised for the value of 1 or zero. In this way, the first approval group here is John and Sarah up until the value of 1000. If a request is raised with a value greater than 1000, then the request is routed to the first group, and then Chris as the final approver.
You can add an additional approver in the first approval group as follows...
- John (limit of 1)
- Sam (limit of 2) <- added in with the limit of 2
- Sarah (limit of 1000)
- Chris (limit of 100 000)
You can create another approval group after the first as follows...
- John (limit of 1)
- Sam (limit of 2)
- Sarah (limit of 1000)
- Derick (limit of 1001) <- added into the second group
- Chris (limit of 100 000)
Now we have a second approval group brought in once the request value is above 1000, being Derick and Chris.
In this way, you can set up stop points, or groups with the limits. Sarah is the gatekeeper for requests up until 1000, once requests go above that value, then the next group of approvers (Derick and Chris) are brought in.
For example, you could further alter this approval route as follows:
- John (limit of 1)
- Sam (limit of 2)
- Sarah (limit of 1000)
- Derick (limit of 5000) <- changed from 1001 to 5000
- Chris (limit of 100 000)
With the above change, the second approval group is now only Derick, and he is the gatekeeper for requests up until 5000, once they go above the value of 5000, the final group, or Chris, is brought in after Derick.
Manual Approval Flow
The manual approval flow is set on a per department basis.
The approvers for a request depend on the department that a request is being raised in, unlike automatic approval flow, where a group of budgets can be allocated to a department, and approval is based off of the budgets selected, not the department the request is being raised in.
The request creator can manually select approvers from a list of approvers on the request creation form.
For example...
The department is called Research and Development.
The approvers in that department are:
- John (limit of 500)
- Sarah (limit of 2500)
- Chris (limit of 10 000)
If a request is raised for the value of 450, all three of these employees will be available for the requestor to select. If the requestor selects all three employees, the request is routed to all three employees at the same time, and they can approve in any order. Once all of the approvers have accepted, the request becomes a purchase order.
If a request is raised for the value of 1200, John will drop away from the list of available approvers, and only Sarah and Chris will be available. If the request value increases above 2500, only Chris will be available from there.
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