Add branching and auto-approval

What this achieves

A route rarely treats every request the same way: a small request should not travel the same path as a large one. Branching sends requests down different paths, and auto-approval lets the ones that meet your rules through without a person.

Required role: Administrator.

Steps

Open the workflow’s draft version in the designer.
Drag a Condition step onto the canvas and connect the step before it.
Select the condition step and open the Config tab.
Leave Expression Language on Expr unless you have a reason to change it.
Write the Expression. Use Insert Field to add a value from the request rather than typing a field name from memory.
Draw a line from the condition to each possible next step.
Select each line and give it a Condition Expression, or mark one of them as the Default Edge.
Select Save, then Validate.

Writing the condition

The expression is checked against the values the request carries. Insert Field lists what is available, grouped by where it comes from — the request itself, the person who raised it, the employee it is about, their department, and the previous step’s result.

Example: at HC Corp, a promotion request from an employee at or above a senior grade takes the Finance path and everything else takes the manager path. That is one condition step with two outgoing lines, not two workflows.

Search the field list rather than guessing a name. A condition that refers to a value the request does not carry will not do what you meant.

Every branch needs somewhere to go

Option	Description
Condition Expression	The test on this line. The request follows the line whose test matches.
Default Edge	The line taken when no other test matches.
Edge Label	A short name shown on the line, so the diagram reads without opening each one.

Only one line out of a step can be the default. If you mark a second, the designer warns you and publishing is refused until you resolve it.

A branch with no default is a route that can dead-end on a request nobody anticipated. Validation and simulation will both tell you before publishing; the default edge is the fix.

Auto-approval

An Auto-Approval step passes a request without asking anyone, when the conditions you set all match. Conditions are combined with AND — every one of them has to be true. For an either-or rule, use a condition step and route on the lines instead.

Then decide what happens when the conditions do not match:

Option	Description
Notify & Route to Manual	Someone is told and the request goes to a person. The safe choice, and the default.
Skip Step	The step is passed over. The request continues with no approval having taken place.
Stop Workflow	The route stops here.

Example: HC Corp auto-approves requests from employees at or above a senior grade, and routes everything else to a person. Nobody spends time on the routine ones, and no request disappears.

Be deliberate about Skip Step. On the record it will look like a step that did not apply, not like a decision that was avoided.

Telling someone without asking them

A Notify step sends a message and moves straight on. Use it where somebody needs to know but has no decision to make — the People team on a completed promotion, for instance.

Option	Description
Recipient Type	Who is told: a specific user, a role, a user group, the requester, the requester’s manager, or the employee the request is about.
Channels	In-app, email, or SMS.
Template	A prepared message, or Custom to write your own.
Message Template	The message itself, which can carry values from the request.
Timing	Whether the message is sent on entering or on leaving the step.
Priority	Recorded on the step. It does not yet change how the message is delivered.

Example: HC Corp notifies Sophie Clarke in the People team whenever a promotion is approved. She is not an approver on the route, and adding her as one would have added a wait for no decision.

What happens next

A branched route is much harder to read than a straight one, which is why the next step is testing it. Run the route against sample data and confirm each branch goes where you expect before you publish it.