Build approval workflows

Conditions, heads of department, reminders in hours, escalation, delegation and non-delegable steps.

Every approval in Vintage People runs through one engine: leave, loans and advances, expense claims, spending requests, profile changes, job requisitions, employment changes, appraisals, and budget revisions and transfers. You set how each type is approved in Settings, Approval workflows.

Workflows and conditions. Pick the request type at the top and add a workflow. Give it a priority and, if needed, conditions: amount, over budget, expense category, department, cost centre, location, project, policy violations or requester. Workflows are checked in priority order and the first that matches applies, so give specific workflows a lower number than general ones.

Steps and approvers. Each step names its approvers: a role, a named user, the requester's manager, the head of the department, the department's alternate approver, or anyone allowed to approve, with an optional backup user. Choose whether everyone, any one or a set number must approve. A step can have its own conditions, so a large claim picks up an extra step that a small one skips. Mark a step Only the named approver when it must never be delegated, such as a CEO sign-off.

Reminders and escalation. For each request type, set when approvers are reminded and when a step is escalated, counted in working days or in hours, and who it escalates to. A step can repeat its reminder every few hours until someone decides it. Approvers can also delegate their approvals for a date range while they are away.

Use Preview with a sample amount to see the chain before it goes live. With no matching workflow, one approval from anyone allowed to approve finishes the request. Whatever you set, the person who raised a request, and the employee it is about, can never approve it.

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