Approval Workflow Template for Operations Teams, Updated November 2026

An approval workflow template is a structured, step-by-step process that routes a submitted form, document, or ticket to designated reviewers who approve, reject, or request changes, with automated notifications telling the requester the outcome.

TL;DR

• Every request moves through five steps: submission, initial review, conditional routing, decision, and notification.
• Copy-ready field lists cover time-off, purchase, contract, onboarding, IT service, and policy or creative requests.
• The authority matrix names each tier’s approver, fallback, audit fields, and a way to set its response deadline.
• Microsoft Teams Approvals, Power Automate, SharePoint, Jotform Workflows, and Kissflow are platforms that handle approval workflows.

For each request type, the template records what starts it, who decides, which rule changes the route, what happens after the decision, and which fields the record must hold. Time-off and purchase approvals are the standard examples, with contracts, onboarding, and IT service requests close behind.

The stakes land on operations first. A request with no named approver holds up the delivery behind it, and a decision with no record becomes a search when an auditor asks. If you run operations and your sign-offs still move through email and spreadsheets beside SAP or Oracle, the fix starts with a written rule for each request type.

Why email approvals leave operations teams without a usable record

An auditor asks who signed off on a vendor exception last quarter, and the answer sits across three inboxes and a spreadsheet tab. SAP or Oracle holds the transaction, but the decision behind it lives somewhere else.

For operations leaders, that gap shows up in everyday work:

• Delivery waits because nobody can see which reviewer holds a request.
• Thresholds drift when each manager remembers the spending policy differently.
• Leave or travel can stop a decision when no delegate has been named.
• Evidence has to be rebuilt by hand from inboxes and spreadsheet tabs.

A template fixes one cause of that delay: nobody wrote the rule down. Slow reviewers and missing budget data still need their own fixes.

Standard approval workflow steps

A leave form and a high-value contract move through the same order, from submission to archive. Simple requests merge steps: on a leave form, the direct manager handles initial review and the decision together, and no conditional routing applies. Every request still keeps its decision record, its notification, and its named fallback.

• Submission: A requester starts the flow with a form, ticket, or uploaded document, which creates one record holding every required field.
• Initial review: A designated reviewer checks that the record is complete before it moves on.
• Conditional routing: Rules send the item to finance or legal by cost, risk, or department, so a purchase above $5,000, for example, gains a finance approver.
• Decision: Each reviewer approves, rejects, or requests changes, and an item that passes the response deadline in your policy moves to its named fallback.
• Notification and archiving: Automated email or chat messages report the outcome to the requester, and the system archives the record with its audit trail of every decision.

Common approval workflow template types

Start with the request that generates the most email, because that is the template you will test soonest. Paste any of these templates into a policy document or a form builder.

Time-off and leave template

• Trigger: An employee submits a PTO, vacation, or leave form.
• Approver: The direct manager reviews team coverage and decides.
• Rule: A leave request with no decision by the response deadline in your policy moves to the HR partner.
• Outcome: The employee receives the decision, and the status field updates.
• Fields: The form includes requester, request date, start and end dates, type of leave, comments, status (pending, approved, rejected, changes requested), and approver.

Purchase and expense template

• Trigger: A team member submits a purchase order, expense reimbursement, or budget request.
• Approver: The direct manager decides requests up to $500, and the budget owner takes anything above $500.
• Rule: A request above $5,000 adds the finance lead after the budget owner.
• Outcome: Approved spend moves to procurement for entry in the ERP.
• Fields: The form includes vendor, amount, cost center, and budget owner.

Contract template

• Trigger: A contract owner uploads a draft agreement.
• Approver: Legal counsel reviews the terms.
• Rule: High-risk or high-value agreements add finance.
• Outcome: The approved version moves to signature, a draft needing changes returns to the contract owner with comments, and a rejected one closes with the reason on record.
• Fields: The form includes counterparty, value, term, and risk level.

HR onboarding template

• Trigger: HR opens a request when a candidate accepts an offer.
• Approver: HR, IT, and finance each sign off on their own tasks.
• Rule: Exceptions, such as a nonstandard equipment need, go to the named owner in that department.
• Outcome: The hiring manager receives confirmation once all three teams finish.
• Fields: The form includes new hire, start date, department, equipment, and system access.

IT service request template

• Trigger: An employee asks for software, hardware, or system access.
• Approver: The employee’s manager confirms the business need.
• Rule: Sensitive-system access adds the IT owner of that system.
• Outcome: Approved work passes to the IT team’s ticketing tool, such as ServiceNow.
• Fields: The form includes requester, system, access level, and justification.

Policy, document, and creative review template

• Trigger: An author uploads a policy draft or marketing asset.
• Approver: The document owner reviews content accuracy.
• Rule: Regulated wording adds legal, and customer-facing creative adds the brand lead.
• Outcome: The document owner publishes the approved version and archives earlier drafts.
• Fields: The form includes title, version, owner, reviewers, and due date.

Popular platforms for an approval workflow template

Microsoft Teams Approvals, Power Automate, SharePoint, and Jotform Workflows each handle approval workflows, and each one suits a different place where requests start.

• Microsoft Teams Approvals suits requests raised inside a chat, a channel, or the Approvals hub. You choose or create the template first, and Microsoft publishes guidance on creating a request from one.
• Microsoft Power Automate suits document and process approval flows, such as invoice and vacation approvals. Someone on your team builds and maintains each flow.
• SharePoint suits documents and items already stored in its lists and libraries. Check the workflow version first, because Microsoft retired SharePoint 2013 workflows in Microsoft 365 on 2 April 2026.
• Jotform Workflows suits approval processes that start when someone submits a form, with email notifications when a task is assigned. You configure the form and each workflow step.

A single-reviewer approval is the simplest case to set up. Multi-department thresholds, exception handling, audit evidence, and the question of who can build under IT governance take more planning, and the authority matrix below forces those decisions.

What an approval authority matrix should record

An authority matrix proves its worth on the day an approver goes on leave. The matrix names who decides each request type at each tier, how long that person has, who covers an absence, and what the record must hold. The dollar tiers below are examples, so replace them with your own delegation-of-authority limits. The deadline column gives the logic for setting each response time, and the number itself comes from your policy.

Authority matrix rules also work as policy text, so you can paste these sentences into a delegation-of-authority document:

• If an expense or purchase order is up to $500, the direct manager decides, and a named delegate covers any absence.
• If an expense or purchase order is above $500, up to $5,000, the budget owner decides, and the department head is the fallback.
• If a contract is high-risk or high-value, legal and finance both review it, and the assigned legal delegate is the fallback.
• If an IT request needs system access, its owner decides after the manager, and the IT duty manager is the fallback.

When an approval rule changes, log the old rule, new rule, owner, and the date it takes effect, and let in-flight requests finish under the version they started on.

Delegation rules keep authority limits intact during an absence

• Name each delegate by role before the absence starts, so the route survives a staffing change.
• Limit a delegate to the absent approver’s dollar tier, and send anything larger to the next tier.
• Record both the delegate and the absent approver on the decision.
• Send a request to the next approver when the delegate is also the requester.

Escalation triggers move a request without a reminder email

• An amount rises above its tier after submission, so the request returns to conditional routing.
• A contract’s risk rating changes during review, so the required reviewers are checked again.
• A fallback is also absent, so the request moves to the next role up.

How Kissflow governs approvals beside SAP or Oracle

Kissflow is an AI-powered enterprise application platform. SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, and Workday remain the systems of record, and Kissflow handles the structured approvals and exceptions at the edges of those systems, the work that still runs through email.

Check these Kissflow controls against the audit fields in your matrix:

• Kissflow holds SOC 1 Type II, SOC 2 Type II, SOC 3, ISO/IEC 27001, HIPAA, GDPR, and CCPA.
• Every action in the Kissflow audit log is timestamped and attributed.

Let the audit fields in your matrix decide whether a platform passes.

Frequently asked questions

How to make an approval workflow in SharePoint?

In SharePoint in Microsoft 365, approvals on list and library items now run through Power Automate, since the SharePoint 2013 workflow is retired. Microsoft’s vacation request example starts a flow when someone adds an item to a SharePoint list, then sends it to the approver you name.

How to create approvals in Power Automate?

Add the “Start and wait for an approval” action to a flow, choose an approval type such as “everyone must approve” or “first to respond,” and name the approvers. Then add a condition on the approver’s response so approved and rejected requests take different paths.

How do you politely ask for approval?

State what you need decided, give the key facts, and name the response deadline so the reviewer can act without a follow-up.

Can one approval workflow template cover every department?

One template can carry the five shared steps, but each request type needs its own trigger, approver, rule, and fields. Most operations teams keep one template per request type and one shared authority matrix.

How do you route an invoice approval by amount?

Route invoices by amount using the same tiers as purchase orders, and check each invoice against its approved purchase order before payment. An invoice above its purchase order amount goes back through conditional routing instead of straight to payment.

Book a demo to see how Kissflow routes governed approvals around your ERP and records every decision in one audit log.