Understanding Approval Routing Groups

Internal:

SEO:

In this article, we refer to “Location” and “Department”. Your domain may have different labels due to custom organizational categories. Learn more here.

Procurify's Approval Routing enables your organization to configure your approval pathways.

What are Approval Groups?

An Approval Group is a select group of Approvers designated to review and approve/deny particular requests.

Best Practice: We recommend reviewing your approval routing when new team members who approve requests join/leave an organization, as well as any promotions/role changes between roles that involve approving requests. When your organization or departments restructure, your approval thresholds may need to be reconfigured.

To Make a new Approval Routing Group please view: How to make an Approval Routing Group.

Conditions

Conditions are the requirements that determine where a request will be routed.

Important: It's important to be aware if multiple groups are being triggered as you may unintentionally send a request to the same approver more than once.

Types of Conditions

Request Type

The Request Type Condition allows you to select which Request types to route to an approval group. If a Request Type Condition is not selected, the group will be responsible for all Request types.

Department

The Department Condition allows you to select the Locations and Departments from where Requests originate. Use the Department condition if an approval routing group should approve requests from a particular Location or Department.

Similar to the Request Type, if a Department Condition is not selected, the Approval Group would apply to any or all, Department(s).

Important: Setting the Department condition to Any may cause an approval loop, particularly if an approver appears in multiple Approval Groups. We recommend setting the Department condition to a specific department(s) rather than using the Any option. For more information on this, please refer to the following article: Having to approve the same orders twice or more.

Account Code

The Account Code Condition allows you to select the Account Codes that are associated with items in a request. Use the Account Code condition if an approval routing group should approve requests from that impact a budget of a particular Account Code

When an order request includes multiple Account Codes belonging to two or more advanced triggers for approval groups, the order request will need to be approved by each group. If you do not want to utilize the Account Code Condition, set the Condition to Any.

Custom Field

The Custom Field Condition allows you to select Custom Field options have if they are selected in an item. Only "dropdown" and "checkbox" Custom Field types are supported. To opt-out of using this Condition within a group, the field can be left as "Any", in order to include all Custom Field possibilities.

To learn more about the Account Code and Custom Field Conditions, please reach out to a Procurify Representative.

Group Sequence

Group Sequence allows you route multiple approval groups. Sequence numbers determine the order in which groups will approve a request. Sequence Numbers range from 1 to 10, with the lower number being triggered first.

In a case where both Approval Groups have the same sequence number, the order will be based on which Approval Group had been created within the system first.

Levels and Thresholds

Approvers within an Approval Group are assigned a level. Generally, requests must be approved by all levels. Exceptions can be created using thresholds.

Levels

The level determines the order in which approvers need to approve requests. Requests will be first routed to an approver in the Level 1, and if approver, it will then passed to subsequent levels. If a Request is denied, it will not be considered for any other approvals. The example group contains 3 levels. As a Level 1 Approver, Susan will be the first approver on a request routed to this Approval Group.

If there are multiple approvers in a level, the requester will choose between Level 1 Approvers, and that approver will choose between the approvers in the next level. In the example above, Susan will choose between Jordan or Sarah to approve the request next.

Thresholds

If a Request exceeds an approver's threshold, it will require the approval of a higher-level approver (if one exists). For example:

Sarah has a threshold of $500.00. A request of $400 approved by Sarah will be fully approved.

Enter a Threshold of 0 if thresholds do not apply. Requests approved by approvers with a threshold of $0 will still require the approval of a higher-level approver (if one exists). For example:

Jordan has a threshold is $0. Any request approved by Jordan will require Andrew's approval.

Final Approver

Approvers assigned to the final level, regardless of the threshold amount, will be the final approver on a request unless another approver approves within their threshold. In our example above, Andrew is generally the final approver for requests routed to the group, unless Sarah approves a request within her threshold.