Form Approvals | Set up Levels of Approval - Zoho Forms

Setting up Levels of Approval


Table of Contents
  1. Setting up a basic approval workflow
  2. Setting up an an advanced approval workflow
You can configure multiple levels of approval to build an efficient approval process. You can add approvers at each level who can review form entries and approve or deny them.

Setting up a basic approval workflow

To set up a basic approval workflow,

  1. After building your form, navigate to the Approvals tab.

  2. Click Configure.
    Click Configure

  3. In the Approval Type pop-up select Basic.
    Approval Type


  4. In the Create Level pop-up, under the Level Setup, enter the Level Name.

  5. Add Approvers for the level by searching the email addresses of users within your organization. A user can be added as an Approver in multiple levels of approval.

  6. You can mark an approval level as complete either when All the approvers set for the level approve/deny a record or when Any of the approvers approve or deny a record.
    Level Setup


    Notes
    Note: You can add a maximum of 100 approvers to each level.

  7. Click Next to go to the Level Preferences. Under the Notifications section, you will find the following optional notification settings, each of which can be configured as per your requirements:

    • Record Review Notification: Notify approvers in this level when a new record is submitted for approval

    • Level Complete Notification: Notify respondents/approvers when this level is marked as complete
      Level Preferences

  8. Under Permissions > Field Permissions, you can choose the form fields that you wish to be visible to the approvers of this level for review. You can rearrange the order in which the fields should appear for review and provide the approvers with the option to edit a field by changing the default Read permission of the field to Write.
    Field Permissions

    NotesNote: All the fields will be visible to the Approval Admin irrespective of the selections made under Field Permissions. If a field is assigned with Write permission, then the Approval Admin will be able to edit entries to that field.

  9. Click Save.
  10. To add more levels of approval to the approval process, click + Add Level on the left as shown.

    Add level

  11. You can choose to disable the entire approval process using the option to enable or disable the Approval Process in the top-right corner of the page.
    Approval Process

Once you have configured the levels required for the approval process, you can configure the Approval Settings.

Setting up an advanced approval workflow

To set up an advanced approval workflow,

  1. After building your form, navigate to the Approvals tab.

  2. Click Configure.
    Advanced Approval

  3. In the Approval Type pop-up select Advanced.

    Advance Approval Type

  4.  In the Create Level pop-up, under the Level Setup, enter the Level Name.

  5. Choose if you wish to configure a level with condition(s) or without any conditions.

  6. If you choose to configure the level with condition(s), click + Add Condition under Conditions.

  7. In the If section, define your conditions by choosing your form fields and the criterion they must satisfy. To add more than one condition, click theicon.
    You can use the     AND/ OR connectors to connect your conditions together. You can switch between the connector as required by clicking them. 
    Click     +Add Sub-group / +Add group to define more conditions with AND, OR connectors to break down conditions into nested logic to suit your requirements. This is useful if you have multiple conditions that must be evaluated together using complex logic.


    Example

    • Condition A1 or A2: Leave Type is either Sick or Casual.
    • Condition A3: The total number of leave days is greater than 3.

  8. You can see a summary of the logic you used to build the criteria under Rule Expression. The rule expression is automatically generated. Review this expression to ensure it aligns with the approval workflow you want to set up.

  9. Once the condition is defined, the next step is to decide what actions should be performed if the condition is met. Under Perform the following action, select an action:

    1. Auto Approve: Automatically approve the form submission without human intervention.

    2. Auto Deny: Automatically reject the form submission

    3. Assign Approvers: Assign specific approvers to manually review and approve/deny the form submissions. Add one or more approvers by entering their email addresses. If you have multiple approvers, you can decide whether all approvers must approve before the level is marked as complete or any one of the approvers can approve to complete the level.
      For example, the form submission will be sent to Sophie Miller for approval if sick leave is applied for more than 3 days.

  10. You can choose to notify the approvers by selecting the Notify User option.

  11. You can also control which fields are editable or read-only during each stage of the approval process by selecting the Field Permissions option.

  12. To keep both the form respondents and approvers informed throughout the approval process, Zoho Forms allows you to configure notifications at different stages. 
    Under the Notifications section, you can configure notifications to be sent out during the process:

    1. Record Review Notification: Notifies the assigned approver that a form submission is waiting for their review.
    2. Level Complete Notification: Notifies the selected people when the form submission has passed a particular approval level.
      Click Configure to customize the content of the notifications.
  13. You can choose to mark the approval process for a form submission as complete once this condition is met. Check the Mark as Final Approval option to complete the approval process after this stage is approved.
  14. Click Done.
  15. Once you have the main conditions set up and have defined what happens when each condition is met, the Else by Default action is a fallback mechanism that executes if none of the preceding conditions are met. This ensures that your form submission process handles every possible scenario, even if the defined conditions fail. By default, the action that executes if all the defined conditions fail is Auto-approve. You can edit this default action and auto-deny or assign approvers to review.
  16. Click Next to configure the Level Preferences. Under Level Preferences, you can configure Notifications and Field Permissions.

    1. Under the Notifications section, you can configure notifications to be sent out during the process:
      1. Record Review Notification: Notifies the assigned approver that a form submission is waiting for their review.
      2. Level Complete Notification: Notifies the selected people when the form submission has passed a particular approval level.
        Click Configure to customize the content of the notifications.
    2. Under Permissions, you can choose the form fields that you wish to be visible to the approvers of this level for review. You can rearrange the order in which the fields should appear for review and provide the approvers with the option to edit a field by changing the default Read 
      permission of the field to Write.
      InfoIf a condition is satisfied and no notifications or permissions are explicitly configured for that specific condition, only then, the settings configured here for the level will apply.  

  17. Click Save.
  18. To add more levels of approval to the approval process, click + Add Level on the left.  
  19. If you choose to have a level without condition, assign approvers to review the form entries and click Next to configure the Level Preferences. 

Notes
Note: 
  1. You can have a add a maximum of 10 levels in an advanced approval workflow.
  2. At each level, you can define up to 5 conditions excluding the Else By Default condition.
  3. For every condition in the approval process, you can assign up to 5 approvers. 
You can choose to disable the entire approval process using the option to enable or disable the Approval Process in the top-right corner of the page.
Once you have configured the levels required for the approval process, you can configure the Approval Settings.