Who it’s for: Administrators and Automate administrators
Platform: Sense HR, Sense Automate
Available on: Team, Professional, Elite and Enterprise
Overview
The Event authorisation workflow is a Standard workflow that manages approval for Events that require authorisation in Sense HR.
By default, an employee’s Event request is sent to their Manager for approval, with fallback behaviour where a Manager isn’t available.
How much you can customise this process depends on your plan:
Team and Professional use the standard Event authorisation process, with default configuration.
Elite and Enterprise can also configure the Standard workflow from Automate > Installations > Event Authorisation (Standard). You can create up to three approval steps, choose who can approve at each step, and decide how approval works when a step has multiple approvers.
🖊️ Note: Event Authorisation (Standard) is provided automatically. You don’t need to find or install it from Workflow Hub.
🖊️ Note: Configurable Standard workflows currently appear as Library in the Type column in Automate > Installations.
How Standard Event authorisation works
By default, an employee’s Event request is sent to their Manager for approval.
When… | What happens |
The employee has a Manager | Their Manager receives the approval request. |
The employee has more than one Manager | All Managers receive the request. Any one of them can approve or decline it. |
The employee doesn’t have a Manager | The request is sent to Admins. |
An Admin without a Manager requests an Event for themselves | The request is automatically approved. |
An Admin adds an Event for another employee | The Event doesn’t require further approval. |
A Manager adds an Event for their employee | The Event doesn’t require further approval. |
The approver receives an email and a To Do in Sense HR. When the request is approved or declined, the employee is notified of the outcome.
Configure Event authorisation — Elite and Enterprise
On Elite and Enterprise, you can customise the standard Event authorisation workflow.
Go to:
Automate > Installations > Event Authorisation (Standard)
The configuration lets you:
use one, two, or three approval steps
choose one or more approver types for each step
decide whether one person or everyone within a step must approve
configure notifications when pending requests are withdrawn or deleted
choose which Event types appear as Also away during this period in approval emails
Configure the approval route and notification settings for Event requests.
💡 Tip: Plan the approval route you need before configuring the workflow. In particular, decide whether approvers need to act at the same stage or one after another.
Choose the number of approval steps
In Number of Steps, select 1, 2, or 3.
Each step is a separate stage of approval.
For example:
One step
Manager → Event approvedTwo steps
Manager → Admin → Event approvedThree steps
Manager → Secondary Approver → Admin → Event approved
When you use more than one step, they happen in sequence. Step 2 becomes active after the required approval is received for Step 1, and Step 3 follows Step 2.
Step Approval Rule
Choose how approval works within each step.
A step can include more than one approver type.
For example:
Step 1: Managers + Secondary Approver
Use Step Approval Rule to decide how approval is handled when multiple approvers are assigned to the same step.
Only one person from a single step must approve
The step is complete when any one of the assigned approvers approves the request.
For example, if Step 1 includes the employee’s Manager and Secondary Approver, either person can provide the approval required for that step.
Use this where approvers act as alternatives or backups for one another.
Each person from a single step must approve
Every person assigned to the step must approve before the request can progress.
Use this where approval is required from everyone included in that step.
Each person from a single step must approve
Every person assigned to the step must approve before the request can progress.
Use this where approval is required from everyone included in that step.
If any approver declines the request, the Event is declined immediately. The workflow doesn’t wait for the remaining approvers to action it.
⚠️ Important: Putting several approvers in the same step is different from putting them in separate steps.
For example:
Step 1:
Managers+Secondary Approver
asks them to approve at the same stage, with Step Approval Rule determining how many approvals are required.
Whereas:
Step 1:
ManagersStep 2:
Secondary Approver
requires the Manager step to be approved before the Secondary Approver step starts.
Choose who can approve at each step
Use Step 1 Approvers, Step 2 Approvers, and Step 3 Approvers to select one or more approver types for each active step.
Approver type | Who receives the request |
Admins | Administrators |
Limited Admins | Limited Admins whose access includes the employee |
Managers | The person recorded in the employee’s Manager field in Job details |
Secondary Manager | The person recorded in the employee’s Secondary Manager field in Job details |
Secondary Approver | The person recorded in the employee’s Secondary Approver field in Job details |
Supervisor | The person recorded in the employee’s Supervisor field in Job details |
Primary Approver | The person recorded in the employee’s Primary Approver field in Job details |
Event Approver | The person recorded in the employee’s Event Approver field in Job details |
Step 1 Approvers is required.
Configure Step 2 and Step 3 only when you’ve selected the corresponding number of approval steps.
Set up employee-specific approvers
With the exception of Admins and Limited Admins, the approver options use person fields on the employee’s Job details screen.
For example, if you select Secondary Approver, the workflow looks for the person recorded in that employee’s Secondary Approver field.
If an approver field you want to use isn’t already available:
Go to Settings > Screen Designer > Screens.
Open Job details.
Add the required person field to the screen.
Save your changes.
Populate the field for the relevant employees.
⚠️ Important: The field name must match the approver option used by the workflow.
Admins and Limited Admins don’t require a corresponding field in Job details. They are resolved from Access Roles, with Limited Admin access restricted to the employees the user has permission to administer.
🖊️ Note: An employee can have more than one Job details record. Where the selected approver type resolves to more than one person, they can all be included in the approval step. The Step Approval Rule determines whether one person or everyone in that step must approve.
What happens if an approver isn’t available?
If a selected employee-specific approver field isn’t populated, that approver type is skipped.
If a step contains several approver types, the remaining available approvers are used.
If nobody can be found for a step, that step is skipped and the workflow continues to the next configured step.
If nobody can be found in any configured step, Admins are used as the fallback approvers.
For example:
Step 1: Managers
Step 2: Secondary Approver
If the employee doesn’t have a Manager but does have a Secondary Approver, Step 1 is skipped and the request continues to Step 2.
Example approval routes
You can use the configuration to create the approval process your organisation needs.
What you want | Configuration |
Manager approval | 1 step — |
Event Approver approval | 1 step — |
Manager or Secondary Approver | 1 step — |
Manager and Secondary Approver | 1 step — |
Manager, then Admin | 2 steps — Step 1: |
Manager, then Secondary Approver | 2 steps — Step 1: |
Primary Approver, then Manager | 2 steps — Step 1: |
💡 Tip: Put approvers in the same step when they should be involved at the same stage. Use separate steps when approval needs to happen in sequence.
Notify approvers when a pending request is withdrawn
Use Tell approvers when a request is withdrawn to choose whether approvers are notified when the person who made a pending request deletes it.
The person who made the request may be the employee or somebody who booked the Event for them.
Select:
Yes— notify approvers who had already been asked to approve the request.No— don’t send a withdrawal notification.
Deletions by Admins and Limited Admins aren’t included in this setting.
The default is No.
Notify the employee and requester when someone else deletes a request
Use Tell the employee and the requestor when someone else deletes the request to choose whether notifications are sent when somebody other than the requester deletes a pending request.
Select:
Yes— notify the employee and the person who made the booking, unless they deleted it themselves.No— don’t send the notification.
The default is No.
Choose which Events appear as “Also away during this period”
The approval email can show colleagues of the employee’s Line Manager who are also away during the requested period.
Use Event types shown as “Also away during this period” to choose which Event types are included.
Holiday is included by default. To include additional Event types, enter their names separated by commas.
For example:
Holiday, Maternity, Paternity
If you leave the setting blank, Holiday is still shown.
🖊️ Note: This helps approvers make an informed decision by showing who else is already away during the requested dates for the Event types you’ve chosen to include.
Save and deploy your configuration
When you’ve finished configuring Event authorisation, save and deploy your changes.
The updated configuration is then used when the Standard Event authorisation workflow runs.
What happens when an Event is requested?
When an employee submits an Event that requires authorisation, the workflow identifies the approvers for the first applicable step.
The approvers receive:
an approval email
an approval To Do in Sense HR
Where there are additional approval steps, the request progresses when the current step has received the approval required by the Step Approval Rule.
For example:
Step 1: Manager
Manager approves.
↓Step 2: Admins
Required Admin approval is received.
↓Event approved
Where multiple approvals are involved, later approvers can see the approval history for the request.
When the approval process finishes, the employee is notified of the outcome.
What happens when an approver makes the request?
The workflow doesn’t ask someone to approve an Event request they created themselves.
Instead, it moves to the next approval step.
For example:
Step 1: Approver A
Step 2: Approver B
If Approver A creates the Event request, Step 1 is skipped and the request goes directly to Approver B.
If Approver B creates the Event request, the request is automatically approved.
This behaviour applies according to the approver’s position in the configured approval route.
📖 Example: The workflow doesn’t send an approval request back to someone who created the Event. It skips their approval step and continues from there. If there are no later approval steps, the Event is approved automatically.
Change your Event authorisation process
On Elite and Enterprise, return to:
Automate > Installations > Event Authorisation (Standard)
... when you need to change the approval process.
You can update:
the number of approval steps
approvers for each step
the Step Approval Rule
withdrawal and deletion notifications
Event types shown as also away
When you’ve finished, save and deploy the updated configuration.
🖊️ Note: Changes to your Event authorisation configuration apply to new Event requests only. Requests already awaiting approval continue using the approval process that was in place when they were submitted, so you don’t need to restart or resubmit them.
Basic troubleshooting
An Event request went to Admins instead of the expected approver
Check whether anyone can be found for the approver types configured for the employee.
For employee-specific approvers, check that the corresponding person field is populated in Job details.
Admins are used as the fallback when nobody can be found across the configured approval steps.
An approval step was skipped
A step is skipped when none of its configured approver types resolves to a person.
For employee-specific approvers, check the corresponding fields in the employee’s Job details.
An employee-specific approver isn’t receiving requests
Check that:
the appropriate approver type is selected for the step
the corresponding person field is available on Job details
the field contains the correct person for the employee
the field name matches the approver option used by the workflow
The request hasn’t progressed to the next approval step
Check:
whether the current approval step has been actioned
which Step Approval Rule is configured
whether every assigned approver still needs to approve because Each person from a single step must approve is selected
Several people received the same approval request
This can be expected.
A step can resolve to several people because:
you’ve selected several approver types
an employee has multiple Job details records with different matching approvers
the selected Admin or Limited Admin option resolves to several users with access to the employee
The Step Approval Rule determines whether one person or everyone in that step must approve.
The wrong colleagues appear under “Also away during this period”
Check Event types shown as “Also away during this period” in the Event Authorisation configuration.
Also check that the Event names have been entered correctly.
Summary
The Event authorisation workflow is a standard Sense HR workflow available on all plans.
On Team and Professional, it uses the default approval process.
On Elite and Enterprise, Event Authorisation (Standard) is also available from Automate > Installations, where you can:
configure up to three approval steps
choose one or more approver types for each step
decide whether one person or everyone within a step must approve
configure notifications when pending requests are withdrawn or deleted
choose which Event types appear as Also away during this period
You don’t need to install a separate Event authorisation workflow from Workflow Hub.
FAQs
Click for answers to frequently asked questions
Click for answers to frequently asked questions
Q: I already use an Event authorisation Library workflow. Do I need to do anything?
A: No. If you were using one of the previous Event authorisation Library workflows, you don’t need to migrate or recreate your setup. Your existing approval settings are carried across to Event Authorisation (Standard). If you want to change your approval process later, you can reconfigure it from Automate > Installations > Event Authorisation (Standard).
Q: Do I need to install Event Authorisation from Workflow Hub?
A: No. Event authorisation is a Standard Sense HR workflow and is provided automatically. On Elite and Enterprise, you can configure Event Authorisation (Standard) from Automate > Installations.
Q: Can Team and Professional customers configure the Standard Event authorisation workflow?
A: Team and Professional customers use the Standard Event authorisation process with default configuration. The additional configuration available from Automate > Installations > Event Authorisation (Standard) is available on Elite and Enterprise.
Q: How many approval steps can I configure for Event Authorisation (Standard)?
A: On Elite and Enterprise, Event Authorisation (Standard) can have one, two, or three approval steps.
Q: Can I have more than one approver in the same Event authorisation step?
A: Yes. On Elite and Enterprise, you can select multiple approver types for the same Event authorisation step. The Step Approval Rule determines whether one person or everyone assigned to that step must approve.
Q: Can I use a Secondary Approver as a backup to the employee’s Manager for the Event authorisation workflow?
A: Yes. On Elite and Enterprise, configure Managers and Secondary Approver in the same step and select Only one person from a single step must approve. Either available approver can then provide the approval required for that step.
Q: Where do I set an employee’s Secondary Approver, Supervisor, or other employee-specific approver?
A: Employee-specific approvers are taken from corresponding person fields on the employee’s Job details screen. If the field you need isn’t available, add it to Job details using Screen Designer and then populate it for the relevant employees.
Q: Can an Event request require approval from both a Manager and an Admin?
A: Yes. On Elite and Enterprise, configure Managers as Step 1 and Admins as Step 2 in the Event authorisation workflow configuration under Automate > Installations. The Admin step starts after the Manager step receives the required approval.
Q: What happens if an approver configured for Event Authorisation (Standard) workflow can’t be found in Sense HR?
A: If a configured approver type doesn’t resolve to anyone for the employee, that approver type is skipped. If nobody can be found for an entire step, that step is skipped. If nobody can be found in any configured step, the request is sent to Admins.