Reading the approval flows table
A tour of the Approval Flows table: what each column tells you about a flow's behavior and step order at a glance.
The Approval Flows table lists every flow your company has set up and sums each one up in a single row, so you can see at a glance whether a flow approves automatically or routes through people, and in what order. You will find it on the Approval Settings page, in the Approval Flows section, just below the form you use to create or edit a flow.
What each column means
The table has four columns:
- Flow: the name you gave the flow when you created it, for example "Wellness fast track" or "Equipment purchases".
- Behavior: how the flow decides an expense. It reads either Auto approve (the expense is approved without anyone reviewing it) or Approval process (the expense is routed to people for review).
- Groups: the approval steps in order, read left to right, with each group separated by an arrow. A flow that goes to the manager, then HR, then Finance reads Manager then HR then Finance. The possible groups are Manager, HR, Salary, and Finance.
- Actions: the controls for that flow, an Edit button and a red Delete button.
The order in the Groups column is the order people actually review in. The arrows point from the first step to the last, so the leftmost group reviews first. A flow set to Auto approve usually has no groups to show, since nobody reviews it.
How the table is ordered
The most recently created flow appears at the top, so a flow you just saved jumps to the first row. The order is by creation date, not alphabetical, so the position of a flow does not change when you rename it.
When you have no flows yet
Before you create your first flow, there is no table. In its place you see the message No approval flows created yet. As soon as you save a flow with the form above, the table appears with that flow as the only row.
Acting on a flow
Each row's Actions column lets you manage that flow without leaving the page:
- Select Edit to load the flow back into the form above, where you can change its name, behavior, or group order and save again.
- Select Delete to remove the flow. The red color is a reminder that this is permanent.
Troubleshooting
- A flow shows no groups. That is expected for an Auto approve flow, since it does not route to anyone. If an Approval process flow shows no groups, open it with Edit and add the groups in the order you want.
- The order in the Groups column looks wrong. Select Edit and reorder the groups. Selection order is preserved, so the sequence you pick in the form is the sequence the table shows.
- A flow I just created is not at the top. Refresh the page. The table orders by creation date, with the newest flow first.