Configure an approval step

What this achieves

An approval step is where a request waits for a person. Configuring it decides who that person is, how long they have, and what happens if they do not act.

Required role: Administrator.

Steps

Open the workflow’s draft version in the designer.
Select the approval step on the canvas.
Open the Config tab in the properties panel.
Choose the Approver Type, then the person, title, or group it needs.
Choose a Fallback User for the case where the approver cannot be resolved.
Set the SLA — a number and a unit of hours, days, or weeks.
Set Reminder before deadline (hours) if you want one sent before the time runs out.
Choose On SLA breach, escalate to.
Select Save.

Who decides

Option	Description
Manager of Requester	Resolved from the request when it runs. It keeps working through reorganisations and leavers without an edit.
Specific User	One named person decides every request that reaches this step.
By Job Title	Records a job title on the step. It does not yet resolve to a person when a request runs, so do not depend on it for a live route.
By Role / Group	Records a group on the step, with the same limitation as job title.

Example: HC Corp’s leave route uses Manager of Requester, so James Whitfield’s request goes to Olivia Bennett without her being named anywhere on the route. When he moves team, the route needs no edit at all.

The requester is never an option. A step cannot be pointed at the person who raised the request, and an approver who turns out to be the requester is blocked from approving and the task escalated.

When nobody can be found

Option	Description
Fallback User	Who to ask when the step’s normal approver cannot be resolved — an employee with no manager recorded, for instance.
Required Step	On by default. Turn it off and the step is skipped when no approver can be found, rather than stalling.

Turning Required Step off is a decision with consequences: the request proceeds with that approval never having happened, and the record will show a skipped step rather than a refusal.

Example: Tom Hargreaves has no manager recorded. On a route using Manager of Requester, his request has nowhere to go — a fallback approver, Sophie Clarke, is what keeps it moving.

Deadlines, reminders, and escalation

Option	Description
SLA	How long the approver has, in hours, days, or weeks. The panel restates it as “must complete within” so you can check what you set.
Reminder before deadline (hours)	How many hours before the deadline a reminder is sent. Empty or zero sends none.
On SLA breach, escalate to	Where the step goes when the deadline passes: nowhere, the approver’s manager, or a specific person you name.

Example: HC Corp gives its manager approval step 48 hours, a reminder at 12 hours, and escalation to the approver’s manager. Olivia Bennett is reminded on the second day and, if she still has not acted, her own manager picks it up rather than the request waiting for her.

Choosing None does not remove the deadline — the task is still flagged as breached in the inbox. It removes the automatic hand-off, and someone has to notice.

Delegation needs nothing here

If the approver has an active delegation, the task routes to their delegate. There is no setting on the step for this, and no version to republish when a delegation starts or ends.

More than two outcomes

Turning on Multi-Outcome replaces the single approved-or-rejected result with outcomes you define — for example approved, rejected, and escalated. Each outcome gets its own path out of the step, and you connect each one to a different next step.

Two rules are worth knowing before you use it:

At least two outcomes are required, and their keys must be unique.
Renaming an outcome disconnects any line already attached to it. Re-connect it after renaming, or that path leads nowhere.

Routing those paths is covered in Add branching and auto-approval.

What happens next

When a request reaches this step, Humavera resolves the approver, applies any delegation, and creates a task in their inbox with the deadline you set. If they act, the route continues. If they do not, the reminder and the escalation you configured are what move it on.