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Understanding PTO Approval Workflows
Understanding PTO Approval Workflows

Learn about the different ways you can route PTO requests for approval.

Brett avatar
Written by Brett
Updated over 3 months ago

For customers of our PTO module.

Each time-off policy you create can be configured to follow one of the following approval workflows:

  • The requestor's manager receives the request for approval

  • An administrator receives the request for approval

Manager Approval

Tip: Choose this option if you'd like to distribute the workload of approving and monitoring time off usage. This option is the default for all new policies.

A person's "manager" is the person to whom they report.

Note: If you're unsure who a person's manager is, a quick way to find out is to check the org chart. ​Using the org chart, you can quickly identify a person's manager by following the line upwards from that person. You can also find a person's manager by going to the person's profile and viewing their Job tab. The Position Info box will show the name of the person's manager.

What if a person reports to an open position? In this case, the system will send the time off request to an administrator who can make the approval decision.

If a person reports to more than one manager (because they have dotted line relationships set up) the request will be sent to each manager. Any manager can approve the request. 

Administrator Approval

Tip: Choose this option if you'd like to centralize the approval process among one or several administrators. 

Built supports various levels of administrative access/control, so if you have more than one administrator in your account, we recommend familiarizing yourself with what each of those roles can do by reading our article about understanding user roles and permissions.

Once you have your administrators set up, you can configure your time off policies so administrators handle all PTO approvals. But how does the system know which administrator to send the requests to?

Built uses the administrator roles to determine which administrator(s) to send requests to. Here's how it works:

  1. The system first checks to see if there is a Limited Admin defined who oversees the requestor. Another way of saying this is that if the requestor is below a Limited Admin on the org chart, the request will be sent to that Limited Admin.

  2. If no Limited Admin is found, the system will move up the list and look for a person with the HR Manager role. If there are multiple people in the HR Manager role, the system will send the request to each of them. Any one of them can approve it.

  3. If no HR Manager is found, the system will move up the list and look for a person with the HR Admin role. If there are multiple people with the HR Admin role, the system will send the request to each of them. Any one of them can approve it. 

  4. Finally, if there are no HR Admins defined, the system will send the request to anyone who has the Company Admin role.

Please contact our Customer Success Team for additional assistance.
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