> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.flowforma.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Approvals

> How approvals work in FlowForma: single, sequential, parallel, group, quorum, and conditional approval patterns, plus rejection, rework, reminders, escalation, and audit.

Most processes built in FlowForma contain at least one approval: a point where a named person or
group has to look at what has been captured and decide whether the process continues. FlowForma has
no separate "approval" object. An approval is just a [step](/product/creating-flows/step/overview)
assigned to someone, which means every approval pattern on this page is built from the same
building blocks as the rest of your flow: steps, [step settings](/product/creating-flows/step/step-settings),
and [business rules](/product/creating-flows/business-rules/overview).

That matters in practice. Because an approval is a step, an approver can be given their own
questions, their own documents, their own view permissions, and their own routing logic, without
leaving the process or handing off to a second tool.

## What an approval looks like

A step becomes an approval when you assign it and give the assignee a decision to record.

* **Assign the step**: in [step settings](/product/creating-flows/step/step-settings), use **Assign to** to
  name a person or a group, or **Assign to form creator** to send it back to whoever started the form.
  Those assigned to a step can complete, reject, or approve it.
* **Capture the decision**: add a [Yes or No question](/product/creating-flows/questions/question-types/yes-or-no-question)
  or a [Choice question](/product/creating-flows/questions/question-types/choice-question/overview) for
  the outcome, and a [Multiple lines of text question](/product/creating-flows/questions/question-types/multiple-lines-of-text-question)
  for comments. Enable **Enable comments** and **Enable attachments** in step settings if approvers
  need to attach supporting evidence.
* **Act on the decision**: use [business rules](/product/creating-flows/business-rules/overview) with
  [conditions](/product/creating-flows/business-rules/conditions) to route, notify, or halt the process
  based on the answer.
* **Set the expectation**: **Time to complete** in the step's advanced settings records how long the
  step should take, which feeds reporting on where approvals stall.

<Tip>
  Use **Step category** in step settings to tag every approval step (for example, `Approval` or
  `Finance approval`). Categories make approval steps easy to find and filter across a large flow.
</Tip>

## Approval patterns

| Pattern                         | Build it with                                                                                                           |
| ------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Single approver                 | One step, **Assign to** a person                                                                                        |
| Sequential approvals            | Consecutive steps, each assigned to the next approver                                                                   |
| Parallel, all must approve      | A [parallel group](/product/creating-flows/step/parallel-steps) containing one step per approver                        |
| Group approval                  | One step, **Assign to** a SharePoint group                                                                              |
| Quorum or scored decision       | A [Voting question](/product/creating-flows/questions/feature-questions/voting-question) with a minimum number of votes |
| Conditional or skipped approval | [Hide/show step](/product/creating-flows/business-rules/business-rule-types/workflow-control-rules/hide-show-step)      |
| Dynamic approver                | [Step assign to](/product/creating-flows/business-rules/business-rule-types/workflow-control-rules/step-assign-to)      |

### Single approver

The simplest pattern. One step, assigned to one person or group, with a decision question on it. Everything
else on this page is a variation of it.

### Sequential approvals

Place approval steps one after another in the [Flow designer](/product/creating-flows/flow/flow-designer/overview).
Each approver only sees the form once the previous step has been submitted, so a two-tier or three-tier
sign-off chain needs no extra configuration beyond assigning each step.

### Parallel, all must approve

Group the approval steps into a [parallel group](/product/creating-flows/step/parallel-steps) when several
approvers need to act at the same time and the order does not matter. The form does not progress beyond
the parallel group until every step inside it has been completed, which gives you an all-must-approve gate.

* Steps in the group can go to the same or different people.
* If one person owns several steps in the group, submitting one submits all of theirs.
* Enable **parallel step collapsing** in [Flow settings](/product/creating-flows/flow/flow-settings) so each
  approver sees only the steps assigned to them.

### Group approval

Assign a single approval step to a SharePoint group rather than an individual. Steps are always assigned to
a user or a team, so this is the pattern to use when any member of a rota, mailbox, or duty team can take
the decision. Pair it with [Teams](/product/work-items/teams) and
[Reassign work item](/product/creating-flows/business-rules/business-rule-types/feature-pack-business-rules/reassign-work-item)
if you also want to balance the load across members of that group.

### Quorum or scored decision

Where a decision belongs to a committee rather than an individual, use a
[Voting question](/product/creating-flows/questions/feature-questions/voting-question) instead of a plain
approval question. It gives you a decision group drawn from a SharePoint group, a **Minimum number of votes**
threshold before the form can progress, optional weighted scoring, public or private voting, and captured
rationale per voter. Results are presented on a later step with the
[Voting question results](/product/creating-flows/questions/feature-questions/voting-question-results) question.

### Conditional or skipped approval

Not every submission needs every approver. Use
[Hide/show step](/product/creating-flows/business-rules/business-rule-types/workflow-control-rules/hide-show-step)
with [conditions](/product/creating-flows/business-rules/conditions) to hide or disable an approval step when
it is not required, for example skipping director sign-off below a spend threshold. **Enable automatic rule
reversal** is on by default, so the opposite condition restores the step.

### Dynamic approver

When the approver is not known at design time, use
[Step assign to](/product/creating-flows/business-rules/business-rule-types/workflow-control-rules/step-assign-to)
to set the assignee at runtime from one of:

* a named person or group
* the answer to a [Person or group question](/product/creating-flows/questions/question-types/person-or-group-question)
  on an earlier step
* the person already assigned to another step in the flow

This is how you route to "the requester's manager" or "the site owner chosen on step 1" rather than a hard-coded name.

## Rejection and rework

FlowForma separates ending a process from sending it back for changes.

* **Reject** ends the form at the step where the rejection happens. Data entered in earlier steps is kept, but
  no further steps can be completed and the form's status shows as "Rejected" (or the alternative wording set in
  [Flow settings](/product/creating-flows/flow/flow-settings)). The reject button is hidden by default. Show it per
  step for administrators, the form author, or all users in
  [step settings](/product/creating-flows/step/step-settings).
* **Pass back** returns the form to an earlier step in editable mode so the original submitter can correct or add
  information, then resubmit and continue. The destination step must have **Allow passback to this step** enabled.
  Users can pass back manually with the passback button, or you can automate it with the
  [Pass back](/product/creating-flows/business-rules/business-rule-types/workflow-control-rules/pass-back) rule, for
  example passing a request back automatically when the approval answer is not "yes".

<Warning>
  The Pass back rule does not send an email on its own. Add a
  [Send email](/product/creating-flows/business-rules/business-rule-types/communications-rules/send-email) rule so the
  person receiving the work back knows about it. Step started rules on the destination step do not re-execute on passback.
</Warning>

For a rework loop that skips the approvals already given, disable the intermediate steps so the form returns
straight to the approver who asked for the change. See
[Show/hide and enable/disable steps](/product/creating-flows/step/overview).

## Keeping approvals moving

Approvals stall when the assignee is busy, on leave, or has left. FlowForma handles each case differently.

* **Delegation by the assignee**: the delegate button on a step lets the current owner hand it to another person or
  group with a comment. Control it per step with **Show delegate button** and **Show delegate button for all users**.
  See [Submitting a form](/product/using-forms/submitting-a-form).
* **Planned absence**: [I am on leave](/product/the-flowforma-site/administration/i-am-on-leave) delegates all steps
  assigned to a user to a substitute for a date range. Steps assigned before the entry was created stay with the
  original owner.
* **Bulk reassignment**: [Bulk assign forms](/product/using-forms/bulk-assign-forms) moves many forms to a new owner
  in one administrator action, including replacing a named user inside parallel steps.
* **Reminders**: the [Alert](/product/creating-flows/business-rules/business-rule-types/feature-pack-business-rules/alert)
  rule sends a recurring email on a days or hours schedule while a step remains uncompleted.
* **Escalation**: the [Reassign work item](/product/creating-flows/business-rules/business-rule-types/feature-pack-business-rules/reassign-work-item)
  rule hands the step to a new owner once, after a set time with no action. Combined with
  [Teams](/product/work-items/teams) capacity, it moves the work to the team member with the most availability.

<Info>
  **Alert** and **Reassign work item** are part of the [Work Items](/product/work-items/overview) feature, which is
  purchased separately and is available for Office 365 only.
</Info>

## Where people approve

Approvers rarely want to visit a portal. FlowForma surfaces the same work item in the places they already work,
and the actions available are the same in each: save, submit, delegate, pass back, and close.

* **The FlowForma site**: approvers open the forms list and work from a view such as forms awaiting their input.
  See [Views](/product/using-forms/views) and [Using forms](/product/using-forms/overview).
* **Microsoft Teams**: the [Teams app](/product/teams-app/overview) shows a **Forms awaiting my input** tile with a
  live count and opens the forms list without leaving Teams.
* **Mobile**: the [mobile app](/product/mobile-app/overview) opens on
  [Forms awaiting my input](/product/mobile-app/forms-awaiting-my-input), so approvals can be completed on a phone,
  including offline-capable [downloaded flows](/product/mobile-app/downloading-flows).
* **Email**: a [Send email](/product/creating-flows/business-rules/business-rule-types/communications-rules/send-email)
  rule on step started notifies the approver and links them to the form. Use
  [Email templates](/product/email-templates/overview) to keep the wording consistent.
* **Outside your organisation**: [FlowForma Engage](/product/flowforma-engage) lets an external approver, either
  anonymous or authenticated with a Google or Microsoft account, complete a step without a licence in your tenant.
  Check the unsupported questions and rules list before designing an external approval step.

## Governance, evidence, and audit

Approvals are usually the part of a process that gets audited, so the controls sit at step level.

* **Who can see what**: the [Security wizard](/product/security-wizard) sets read and edit permissions at flow and
  step level. The user assigned to a step holds the highest rank in the permission hierarchy, so approvers get access
  to what they need to decide without being given the whole flow. Use **Enable view permissions** in
  [step settings](/product/creating-flows/step/step-settings), or the
  [Step view permission](/product/creating-flows/business-rules/business-rule-types/permissions-rules/step-view-permission)
  rule, to restrict a sensitive approval step further.
* **Proving who approved**: [E-signature](/product/life-science-pack/e-signature) requires the approver to re-enter
  their password on step completion, or when casting a vote. The 21 CFR signature type also captures the role of the
  signatory and the purpose of signing.
* **Recording what happened**: the [Audit](/product/life-science-pack/audit) feature logs step started, step completed,
  delegate, pass back, business rule execution, and signature checked events with the user and timestamp. Enable it
  site-wide, per flow, or on individual rules.
* **Reviewing changes**: [History and restore options](/product/the-flowforma-site/administration/history-and-restore-options)
  show what changed on a form over time.

<Info>
  **Audit** and **e-signature** are part of the Compliance and Life Science feature packs. **Voting** requires the
  Collaborative Decision Making feature to be enabled in
  [FlowForma Settings > Features](/product/flowforma-settings/features).
</Info>

## Measuring approval performance

Because **Time to complete** is captured per step, approval bottlenecks are measurable rather than anecdotal.

* [Process performance](/product/process-performance/overview) and
  [Trend analysis](/product/process-performance/trend-analysis) show where steps run over their expected duration.
* [FlowForma Analytics](/product/flowforma-analytics/overview) charts approval volumes and cycle times across flows.
* [FlowForma Reporting](/product/flowforma-reporting/overview) exports form data to SQL or Power BI for your own
  approval reporting.

## Next steps

<Columns cols={2}>
  <Card title="Add an approval step" icon="user-check" href="/product/creating-flows/step/step-settings">
    Assign a step, control its buttons, and set view permissions.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Route it conditionally" icon="git-branch" href="/product/creating-flows/business-rules/business-rule-types/workflow-control-rules/overview">
    Hide, show, assign, and pass back steps with workflow control rules.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Approve in Teams" icon="message-square" href="/product/teams-app/overview">
    Give approvers their work items inside Microsoft Teams.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Chase and escalate" icon="alarm-clock" href="/product/work-items/overview">
    Reminders, capacity, and automatic reassignment with Work Items.
  </Card>
</Columns>