Administrators can create workflows to define which attendance submissions need manual approval and which can be automatically approved. To create an approval workflow, add conditions to define which attendance violations should trigger an approval task. Then, add rules to specify who the approval applies to.

The system checks new attendance submissions against all active workflows. If a submission meets a workflow's conditions, it sends an approval task to the assigned approvers. Approvers can find and review these requests in their Inbox, where they can action multiple tasks at once.

If a submission doesn't match any workflow conditions, it's automatically approved.

Before you start

Permissions

Before you start, make sure the relevant users have the correct permissions:

• You need Administrator permissions to set up, edit, or monitor attendance approval workflows.
• To receive and action attendance requests, approvers must have View permissions for the relevant employee's attendance data.
• Only users with Propose permissions for attendance data trigger an approval process. Users with Edit permissions can adjust attendance data without approval.

Considerations

Keep the following in mind:

• When you activate a new approval workflow, it immediately applies to any new submissions, and new approvers get notified.
• Approvals only trigger when someone with Propose permissions submits changes to attendance data and their submission matches the conditions of an approval. Employees with Edit permissions don't trigger approvals. 
• If you assign an employee role as the approver, all members of that role get the approval task. Once one of them approves it, the task disappears for all others.
• Approvers must have View permissions to attendance data. 
• If multiple approvals match an employee's submission, the system applies the approval assigned the highest priority. For this reason, give the most general workflow the lowest priority, and the most specific the highest priority. See how to change the priority of workflows.
• Approvers can manage their email preferences for approval tasks by going to Personal Settings > Notifications. Enable the checkbox for Approvals to activate email notifications. 
• If an approver’s employee status is Inactive or On leave, requests for them do not go to their delegate. Instead, they go directly to the last editor of the approval. If the approval process automatically migrated from our legacy system, this may be the longest serving employee with Administrator permissions. 

Set up an attendance approval workflow

To create an approval workflow for attendance submissions that violate the rules in the employees’ work schedules, follow these steps:

1. Go to Automations > Create workflow > Approvals.
2. Choose the Approval for attendances with rule violations template.
3. Click the trigger box to adjust the conditions. Without conditions, all attendance submissions will trigger the workflow. 
   • Optionally, add rules to define which employees this workflow applies to, using available preset or custom attributes. Add rules to include additional Supervisors in the approval process. 
4. Click Update to save the edits.
5. To select the request approver, click the approval step. Select up to four approvers per step.
   • Add multiple steps to create an approval chain. As soon as one of the approvers in a step actions the request, the workflow moves to the next step.
   • If your organization has additional Supervisor capabilities, include them if required.
   • If you add Affected person as an approver, employees will be able to approve their own attendances.
6. Optional: Ensure requests aren't delayed by activating the Enable delegation option. Set how many days to wait before delegating and who should get the request. If that user is also unavailable, the workflow creator receives the task. 
7. Optional: add steps for approved or denied requests. 
8. Save and activate the workflow.

Note:
If a request is denied at any point in the approval chain, the workflow ends. It appears as complete in the Activity tab and the approval request is rejected. To inform users about the progress of the workflow in email, you must manually add a step to the workflow. This includes informing approvers about the task via email. 

Conditions

Note:
Some settings mentioned in this section have changed. Steps or navigation paths related to attendance settings may not match what you see in your account. For more information, read this article.

When setting up an approval workflow, you can choose from the conditions in the table below. Keep in mind:

• Conditions only trigger if the corresponding section in the employee’s work schedule is set up correctly.
• You can decide if a submission must match all or any of the conditions to trigger the workflow. Use the dropdown in the Condition drawer to switch between the two options.
• The time unit for all conditions is minutes.

Add additional supervisors to an approval

If your organization uses additional supervisors, you can include them in approval workflows. Follow these steps:

1. Create an attendance approval workflow as outlined above.
2. In the trigger box, add a rule. 
3. Select the relevant additional supervisor attribute, and whether the workflow applies to employees with or without this attribute. Update your changes. 
4. In the approval box, add an approval step. 
5. Click From this workflow and select the relevant additional Supervisor attribute. Update your changes.
6. Complete the setup and save or activate the workflow. 

How approval workflows apply to time entries

Personio doesn't distinguish between a clock-in made using a shared device and a time entry added manually through the desktop or mobile app. From a technical standpoint, Personio treats them the same. This means there's only one approval process for all time entries. You either auto-approve everything, or everything goes through manual approval. 

If you want to automatically approve clock-ins from a shared device while flagging manually added entries for review, two approaches work well together:

Restrict retroactive time entries

In your time tracking policies, you can limit how far back employees can log time. You can set this to zero days (no retroactive entries at all) or a specific number of days. This means if someone forgets to clock in, they cannot fix it themselves. Someone with edit permissions for their attendance data needs to make the correction for them. It's not automated, but it creates a manual approval step for any entries employees don't clock in on the day.

Set up conditional automations

In Automations, you can create rules that only trigger an approval request under certain conditions. For example, a rule can trigger when an entry exceeds or falls short of the expected working hours. This way, normal entries pass through without interruption, while Personio flags anything that looks unusual for review.

Next steps

To check pending approvals, Administrators can go to the Automations > Activity tab. Find more details in the Monitor and manage workflows article.