Approval flows

Create a chain

1. Open Settings, Policy, and switch to "Approval Chains".
2. Click "New chain". A draft named "New approval chain" appears; rename it.
3. Choose the scope: "Company", "Team", "Department", or "Location", optionally narrowed to specific leave types (or "All leave types").
4. Add steps in order. Each step names who approves at that stage.
5. Toggle "Active" on and click "Save chain".

A company-wide chain applies unless a narrower chain matches: the most specific scope wins, mirroring how policies resolve.

Who can approve a step

Per step you can toggle "Required approval" and "Allow override", and decide what happens when a step's approver cannot be resolved: "Escalate" or "Skip". Reorder with "Move step up" / "Move step down".

• "Direct manager": the requester's own approver, resolved per person.
• "Specific user": one named person, picked with "Choose a user".
• "Department head": the head of the requester's department.
• "Role based": anyone holding a chosen role ("Choose a role").
• "HR manager" and "Company owner": fixed organizational anchors.

What approvers and employees see

• Approvers get the request in their normal queue; the approve dialog shows "Approval progress · step X of Y" and who is next, or "This is the final approval step."
• Only the current step's approver can act; others see "Review" instead of Approve.
• Employees watch the same progress timeline on their pending request.
• Deputy cover slots in per step: an active deputy acts for exactly the step their manager owns.
• Chain decisions carry a "Multi-step" badge in audit logs.

Manager Requests: the other Policy queue

The neighboring "Manager Requests" subview is not about time-off approvals: it is where admins review policy change requests submitted by managers for their teams. Approving one ("Approve and apply" for immediate, "Approve" for next cycle) creates a team-specific copy of the source policy with the requested changes; "Reject" declines it.