How the Manager approver is determined
How a flow's Manager step finds the right reviewer for each employee, and what happens when no manager is set.
When an approval flow step uses the Manager group, CLVR does not draw from a fixed list of reviewers. Instead it works out the right manager for each submitting employee at the moment they submit, using that person's own employee data. This article traces the exact lookup order CLVR follows and explains what happens when no manager is found.
Why Manager is different from the other groups
The other groups in a flow, HR, Salary, and Finance, resolve to the people you add to them under Group Members on the approval settings page. Everyone in that group reviews whenever a step targets it.
Manager is the exception. It has no member list and no picker on the settings page, because the reviewer changes from one employee to the next. When a step is Manager, each submission is routed to that specific employee's own manager, looked up live. You maintain this by keeping each employee's manager data accurate, not by editing the flow.
The lookup order
When an employee submits and the flow reaches a Manager step, CLVR resolves the reviewer in this order and stops at the first one that finds a person:
It reads the employee's Manager value from their employee data and finds the colleague whose employee number matches that value. The Manager field is an employee picker, so it points at one specific person.
If that finds no one, CLVR falls back to the employee's linked manager field and again matches it to a colleague by employee number.
If neither step finds a manager, the Manager step falls back to the people in your HR group.
The first match wins. If the Manager value resolves to a real colleague, the linked manager field and the HR fallback are never used.
What the HR fallback means in practice
The HR fallback exists so a submission is never left without a reviewer. It also means a missing or incorrect Manager value routes that approval to HR instead of to a manager. A few situations trigger it:
- The employee has no Manager value and no linked manager set.
- The Manager value points at an employee number that does not exist in your company.
- The person named as manager has left and their record was removed.
In every case the Manager step quietly goes to your HR group rather than failing. That is helpful for keeping things moving, but it can hide a data problem, so it is worth keeping employee manager data up to date and keeping at least one person in the HR group at all times.
You do not assign Manager members anywhere. There is no Manager picker under Group Members on purpose. The only thing that controls who a Manager step routes to is each employee's own manager data.
Keeping Manager steps accurate
To make sure Manager steps reach the right person:
- Set each employee's Manager to the correct colleague in their employee data.
- When someone changes manager, update the Manager value so future submissions route correctly.
- Keep your HR group populated, since that is where any unresolved Manager step lands.
The same lookup runs everywhere the flow is shown, so the manager you see listed as the expected reviewer for a step is the one CLVR will actually assign when the employee submits.
Troubleshooting
- A Manager step went to HR, not a manager. That employee has no resolvable manager. Check that their Manager value is set and points at a current colleague, then resubmit a fresh expense to confirm.
- The wrong manager is reviewing. Open that employee's data and correct their Manager value. The change takes effect on their next submission, not on items already in review.
- There is no Manager picker on the settings page. That is expected. Manager is resolved automatically per employee, so it has no member list like HR, Salary, and Finance do.
- A submission was approved with no review. If a flow's only step is Manager and the employee has no manager and your HR group is empty, no reviewer resolves and the submission is approved automatically so it does not get stuck. Add members to your HR group to restore review.