Special circumstances may arise during an approval process in a company, such as the approver is empty, the approver and the request initiator are the same, the same approver has been set repeatedly in the same process, or someone involved in a process has left the company. These may interrupt the approval processes, complicate the manual operations, or lead to other problems.
Next, we will introduce 4 special circumstances, including their causes and response measures.
- 1.Approval is empty
Under which circumstances will the approver be empty?
There are several possible causes.
- ◦"Manager' approval has been set for the process, but the initiator has no direct manager in Admin - Organization.
- ◦"Department supervisor' approval has been sent for the process, but the initiator has no department supervisor in
- ◦"Role' approval has been set for the process, but the role has no member in
How is the approval process transferred when the approver is empty?
Such a process will be transferred following the administrator configuration in the Approval Admin. The administrator can go to Edit Approval Page - Flow Design to configure the following transfer approaches.
- ◦Auto skip: If the current step still has other approvers, the request will be forwarded to other approvers for approval. Otherwise, the step will be skipped automatically.
- ◦Forward to a specified member: You can specify a member and the approval request will be automatically forwarded to the member for approval. If the specified member has left, the rule preset for the "Approval has left' special circumstance applies. (For details, see Section 4 in this article.)
- ◦Forward to approval administrator: You can specify an approval administrator and the approval request will be automatically forwarded to the administrator for approval. If the specified approval administrator has left, the rule preset for the "Approval has left' special circumstance applies. (For details, see Section 4 in this article.)
- 2.Approver and request initiator are the same
Under which circumstances will the approver and the request initiator be the same?
The approver preset for the process initiates an approval request.
- •For example: "Role - HR' has been configured as the approver of "Leave request', and the HR initiates a leave request.
How is the approval process transferred when the approver and the initiator are the same?
Such a process will be transferred following the administrator configuration in the Approval Admin. The administrator can go to Edit Approval Page - Flow Design to configure the following transfer approaches.
- ◦Approver approves their own request: No system actions will be taken, and the initiator needs to manually approve their own request.
- ◦Auto skip: The initiator will be skipped and the request will be forwarded to another approver at the same step for approval. If the step has no other approvers, the step will be automatically skipped.
- ◦Forward to direct manager for approval: The request will be forwarded to the initiator's direct manager for approval. If the initiator has no direct manager, the step will be automatically skipped.
- ◦Forward to department supervisor for approval: The request will be forwarded to the supervisor of the initiator's department for approval. If the initiator has no department supervisor, the step will be automatically skipped. If the initiator is the department supervisor, the request will be forwarded to the supervisor of the initiator's parent department.
- 3.The same approver has been set repeatedly in the same process
Under which circumstances will the same approver be set repeatedly?
The approver assumes multiple identities in an approval process that involves multiple steps.
- ◦For example: In the "Direct manager - Direct department supervisor' two-level approval process, an approver is both the direct manager and department supervisor of the request initiator.
How is the approval process transferred when the same approver has been set repeatedly?
When an approver has been set for multiple steps in a process, they only need to process the request once. All subsequent steps that the approver is set for will be automatically skipped.
However, the subsequent steps won't be automatically skipped in the following circumstances, that is, the approver needs to process the request at multiple steps.
- ◦The request content has changed during the approval process. For example: The original reimbursement requested was 100 and then modified to 1000 during the approval process.
- ◦The approver's permissions at the two steps are different. For example: The approver can't view a form field at the first step, but can view it at the second step.
- ◦The request requires another approval due to transfer,adding an approver, or rollback. For example: The approver had completed the first approval, and was then added for another approval.
- ◦The "Approver is empty' process applies to a subsequent step and the request has been transferred to the same approver. For example: A had completed the approval at the first step. At the second step, the approver didn't exist, so the request automatically followed the "Forward to A when approver is empty' process. In this circumstance, A needs to manually process the request again.
- 4.Approver, initiator or cc'd recipient has left
The approver, initiator or cc'd recipient of an ongoing approval request leaves.
- ◦Approver has left: The approval request will be automatically forwarded to the direct manager of the approver for approval. If the direct manager is empty, no actions will be taken.
- ◦Initiator has left: The direct manager of the approver will be automatically copied on the approval request for follow-up. If the direct manager is empty, no actions will be taken.
- ◦Cc'd recipient has left: No actions will be taken by default.