How the Manager approver is determined
How a flow's Manager step finds the right reviewer for each employee, what happens when no manager is set, and how a change of manager reaches expenses that are already waiting.
Manager is one of the built-in approvers on the Approvers tab of Approval settings. Unlike the other groups, it has no list of members. When an expense reaches a Manager step, CLVR asks that employee's own manager, looked up from their employee data at that moment. This article explains the lookup and what happens when no manager is found.
Why Manager is different from the other groups
HR and your own groups are fixed lists of people that you keep on the Approvers tab. Everyone in the list is asked when a step uses that group.
Manager changes from one employee to the next. Its card on the Approvers tab is marked Built in and has nothing to edit. It shows how many people in your company are managers, and that employees without a manager go to HR instead. You control who a Manager step goes to by keeping each employee's manager up to date on their profile.
A manager is one person, so a Manager step always shows Approves alone in the flow editor. It has no choice of how many need to approve.
The lookup order
When an expense reaches a Manager step, CLVR looks for the reviewer in this order and stops at the first one it finds:
The employee's Manager, as set in their employee data. It points at one colleague, matched by employee number.
If that finds no one, the employee's other manager field, for example one filled in by an HR system sync, again matched to a colleague by employee number.
If neither finds a manager, the step goes to the people in your HR group.
What the HR fallback means in practice
The fallback keeps an expense from waiting on a manager who isn't there. It also means that a missing or wrong manager sends that approval to HR instead. This happens when:
- the employee has no manager set,
- their manager is set to an employee number that doesn't match anyone at your company, or
- the person set as their manager has left and their details have been removed from CLVR.
If HR is empty as well, the Manager step has nobody to ask and is skipped. So keep at least one person in HR at all times.
When an employee's manager changes
When you change an employee's manager in the webapp, expenses from that employee that are still waiting for the previous manager move to the new manager. Decided approvals and finished expenses are not changed. If you clear the manager instead of picking a new one, the previous manager keeps the expenses already waiting for them.
New expenses use the manager as it is set when they reach the Manager step.
Troubleshooting
- A Manager step went to HR, not to a manager. That employee has no manager CLVR can find. Check that their Manager is set and points at a current colleague.
- The wrong manager is reviewing. Correct the employee's Manager on their profile. Expenses still waiting for the old manager move to the new one.
- There is nothing to edit on the Manager card. That is expected. Manager follows each employee's own data, not a list.
- An expense with a Manager step was approved with no review. The employee had no manager and HR was empty, so the step was skipped. If it was the only step, the expense was approved. Add people to HR on the Approvers tab.