This article describes the new approvals experience in Automations. Before reading on, check if you have access to the new experience. If you don’t, set up default approvals instead.

Administrators can create workflows to define which changes to employee information need manual approval and which can be automatically approved. To create an approval workflow, add conditions to specify which changes need manual approval based on the employee profile section being edited. Then, add rules to define who the workflow applies to.

The system checks new employee data change submissions against all active workflows. If a change submission matches a workflow's conditions, it sends an approval task to the designated approvers. Approvers defined in the workflow receive and review these requests in their Inbox, where they can action them in bulk.

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

Access rights

Before you start

Before you start, keep the following in mind:

• When you activate an approval workflow, the system applies it to any new submissions. New approvers get a notification about it.
• Only submissions from users with Propose access rights trigger workflows.
• When an employee role is the approver, everyone in that role receives approval requests. As soon as one of them approves, the task disappears for all others.
• If a request is rejected at any point in the approval chain, the workflow appears as complete and the approval request is denied. 
• Approvers need View access rights to the employee profile section(s) they need to review.
• If multiple employee data approval workflows apply to the same employee, only the most recently activated workflow runs. For this reason, we recommend setting up general workflows first, followed by workflows for specific groups of employees.

Set up an employee data change approval workflow

To create an approval workflow for employee data change submissions, follow these steps:

1. Go to Automations > Create workflow > Approvals.
2. Choose the Employee data change approval rule template.
3. Click the trigger box at the top to adjust the conditions. Without conditions, all employee data change submissions will trigger the workflow.
4. Optionally add rules to define which employees this workflow applies to using available preset attributes and custom attributes. Add rules to include additional Supervisors in the approval process.
5. Click Update to save the edits.
6. To choose the request approver, click the approval box. 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. 
7. Optionally, add steps for approved or denied requests. 
8. Save and activate the workflow.

Note:
In organizations with active payroll integrations, certain payroll attributes (such as IBAN and payroll ID) become system attributes and are not available to select in rules or conditions.

Conditions

When creating employee data approval workflows, you can select the profile sections that require an approval once edited. Any changes to these sections will trigger an approval task.

To assign section-specific approvers, create separate workflows. For example:

• One workflow for Payroll information changes, approved by members of the Finance Department role.
• One workflow for HR Information and Emergency Contact changes, approved by HR Managers.

If an employee data change submission meets the conditions of more than one workflow, only the most recently activated workflow applies. If you edit and re-activate a workflow, it's considered the most recently activated. 

Add additional supervisors to an approval

If your organization has additional Supervisors set up, you can add them to approval workflows. Follow these steps:

1. Create a data change approval workflow as outlined above.
2. In the trigger box, add a rule. 
3. Choose the relevant additional Supervisor attribute, and whether the workflow applies to employees with or without this attribute. Update your changes. 
4. In the Request 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 as necessary. 

Edit employee data change approval workflows

When you edit an employee data approval workflow:

• Any open requests that still require approval stay in the inbox of the original approver.
• Any employee data changes submitted after the workflow is edited and activated follow the new approval workflow.
• If more than one employee data change approval workflow applies to the same employee, the system only runs the most recently edited and activated one.

Monitor employee data change approvals

To check which employee data submissions need approval, Administrators can go to the Automations > Activity tab. Find more details in the Monitor and manage workflows article.