Approve requests from your approval inbox

The approval inbox is your personal to-do list of HR decisions. When a leave request or an hourly permission reaches a step of its approval chain that is assigned to you, it appears here until you act on it. Approving moves the request to the next step; the last approval completes it.

Before you start

• An approval chain must be active for the request type. HR sets it up in workflow templates. Without an active template, requests are approved directly on their own screens and never reach the inbox.

• You only see steps assigned to you, plus steps of anyone who has delegated their approvals to you for today's date. See delegate your approvals.

Review and decide a request

1. Open People › Requests & Approvals › Approval Inbox. The list shows every step waiting for you.

1. Read the row. Step shows the step name and its position in the chain (for example "Step 2"). For leave, it also shows the employee and the dates. Workflow names the template, Request type shows whether it is leave or an hourly permission, and Status shows the step's state.

2. If the row carries an "On behalf of" badge, you are acting as someone's delegate. Your decision is recorded under your own name.

3. Select Approve to accept the step. You can add a comment; it is optional and kept with the step.

4. Select Reject to turn the request down. A rejection reason is required, up to 1,000 characters. The employee sees it on their request.

What happens next

• Approve on a middle step: the request moves to the next step. The system works out who approves it and notifies that person (and their delegate, if one is active). The row leaves your inbox.

• Approve on the last step: the request is approved. For leave, the system checks the balance again and deducts the days. If the balance is no longer enough, the approval is refused and the step stays with you. For an hourly permission, the system re-grades that day's attendance so the excused late arrival or early leave no longer counts against the employee.

• Reject at any step: the whole chain closes and the request becomes rejected. Later steps are never created.

• No answer in time: if HR set an auto-approve window on the step, the system approves it automatically once the hours pass. The check runs every hour.

Common questions

Can I approve from the leave screen instead? Yes. Approving a request on the leave or hourly-permission screen advances the same step, but only if you are that step's approver or their active delegate. Anyone else is told which step and approver the request is waiting for.

Why did a request skip me? When the system cannot find an approver for a step, for example the employee has no manager and the department has none either, it skips that step and moves on. If every step is skipped, the request is approved.

Are loans and expense claims here? No. Loans and expense claims follow their own approval steps on Loans & Advances and Expense Claims.