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Approval chains

Approval chains

If your role is organization admin, in Administration → Approval chains you configure who has to approve each process before it moves on: today, Requisitions, Purchase orders and Supplier invoices. Each process has its own configuration, independent from the others.

One tab per process

The panel has one tab per process. Inside each one, from top to bottom: the policy switch and the default chain, the assignment table, the chain list, the advanced rules and the simulator. Supplier invoices also adds the classification section (cost center, account, concept).

Turning on the policy and the default chain

The switch at the top of each tab turns approval on or off for THAT process. With the policy off, nothing goes through approval even if you have chains set up. Next to it you pick the default chain: the one used when no department (or advanced rule) has a chain assigned. Without a default chain, an unassigned department is left uncovered.

Assign by department

For Requisitions and Purchase orders, the table lists every department in your organization with its chain: you pick a chain per row or leave it unassigned (it falls back to the default chain, if there is one). Supplier invoices has no departments: there the table routes by whichever classification dimension you marked as routing (cost center, account or concept).

The chain editor

A chain has one or more steps, in order: everyone has to approve for the chain to finish. Each step defines who approves through amount bands: a cutoff ("from $X") with a primary approver (gets the email with the link and decides) and, optionally, a backup (gets no email, decides from "My approvals" when the primary is unavailable). The first band always starts at $0.

A switch inside the step decides whether bands replace each other (only the matching band signs) or stack (a high amount also needs the sign-off of the bands below it). Each step can also have an "applies from" amount: below that figure, the whole step is skipped.

For cases that don't fit simple bands (everyone signs, or a quorum of N people), the step has an advanced mode; if an existing chain is already set up that way, the editor opens it automatically and flags it.

Advanced rules and tie-breaking

Beyond assignment by department, you can create more specific rules: for example, a minimum/maximum amount, a particular requester (Requisitions) or a combination of dimensions (Invoices). Each rule has a priority and points to a chain. When a case matches more than one rule, the highest priority wins; on a tie, the more specific one wins. Rules built by the department assignment table show up here as read-only: edit them from that table, not from this list.

The simulator

Before trusting a configuration, test it: enter a hypothetical case (department or dimension, amount, currency, requester if it applies) and the simulator shows which chain or rule would apply, each step with its participants and amount band, whether the case is left without a chain, and whether a missing exchange rate would leave the case unresolved. The simulator saves nothing: it's for testing only.

If the policy is on with no chain that applies

Turning the policy on without a default chain or rules asks for confirmation: without either, the engine has no one to ask for approval and any new case will fail. Later on, if a given case matches no rule and there's no default chain, that specific case doesn't go through (fails closed, it never proceeds without approval), and the organization admin is notified to review the setup.

See also