I. Overview

Sanplex provides customizable approval flows. You can flexibly design approval processes that match your business needs, including approval nodes, approvers, approval roles, CC recipients, conditional branches, and more.

Sanplex also supports advanced approval configurations, such as:

• Selecting approvers from multiple levels of line managers
• Using the initiator as the approver
• Allowing the initiator to select approvers
• Letting the previous node approver choose approvers for the next node
• Percentage-based approval, opinion collection, and removing approvers
• Operational controls such as Return, Transfer, Initiator Withdraw, and mandatory fields for approvers

Sanplex manages both project approvals and workflow approvals through a unified Approval Flow entry under Workflow.

II. Entry

In the left navigation, click Workflow and then Approval Flow to open the Approvals page (approval permissions must be granted by a Company Administrator). On this page, you can configure approval flows and approval roles.

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Sanplex provides a unified Approval Flow to manage both project approvals and workflow approvals.

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III. Create an Approval Flow

On the Approvals page, click Create Approval Flow to add a new approval flow, or use the action buttons on the right side of the list to edit an existing one.

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On the creation page, enter the Approval Flow Name, Type, and Description.

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After saving, the page returns to the list, where you can see the newly created approval flow.

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IV. Design an Approval Flow

In the list, click Design Flow from the action buttons on the right to enter the design page.

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A newly created flow includes three default nodes: Initiate, Approve, and End.

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Click an approval node to configure it. The example below shows the CC node configuration, where you can set CC recipients:

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• Initiator selects: Selected manually by the initiator on the approval initiation page.
• Specified user: CC a specific user.
• Role: Approval roles maintained in Approvals > Roles.
• Line Manager: The department manager based on the Sanplex department structure.

Below is the configuration of an Approval node.

1. Configure Basic Information

Maintain the approval title and approval node type.

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Title: The name of the approval node.

Approval Node Type:

• Manual approval: Approvers must manually click Approve or Reject.
• Auto-approve: Typically used when branches exist but no approver is configured.
• Auto-reject: Typically used when branches exist but no approver is configured.

2. Configure Approvers

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Approver Type:

• Initiator selects: The initiator selects approvers on the initiation page. (You may allow any user, or restrict by role/department/position.)
• Initiator: The initiator approves the request.
• Role: All users in the selected role jointly review (roles can be configured in the backend).
• Position: All users in the selected position jointly review (positions can be configured in the backend).
• Department Manager: Reviewed by the manager of the initiator’s department.
• Line Manager: Reviewed by the initiator’s direct line manager (direct line manager can be configured in the backend).
• Multiple-level Managers: Reviewed by multiple levels of the initiator’s managers. The end level can be set to the top manager, or level 2/3/4/5 manager.
• Previous node selects approver: The approver of the previous node selects the reviewer for this node. (Not available for the first node.)
• Execution Roles: Roles based on the Execution associated with the approval object, including Product Owner, Test Owner, Release Owner, Execution Owner.
• Product Roles: Roles based on the Product associated with the approval object, including Product Owner, Test Owner, Release Owner, Feedback Owner, Ticket Owner, Requirement Reviewer.
• Project Roles: Roles based on the Project associated with the approval object, including Project Owner and Project Stakeholder.

3. Configure Actions During Approval

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Transfer: After transfer, another person becomes the approver (single selection only).

Return: You can return to any previous node before the current one, including the initiator.

• Follow flow sequence after return: After the returned node is approved, the flow continues to the next node in sequence.
• Resume from the current review node: After the returned node is approved, the flow jumps directly back to the current node for review.

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Add Sign-off: Supports adding approval nodes before, after, or adding additional approvers at the current node.

• Add before: Insert a node before the current node. Multiple approvers are supported, and you can redefine the multi-approver rule. Other settings follow the current approval flow.
• Add after: Insert a node after the current node. Multiple approvers are supported, and you can redefine the multi-approver rule. Other settings follow the current approval flow.
• Add approver at current node: This option is not shown if the current approval node has only one approver.

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Allow initiator to withdraw during review: When enabled, the initiator can withdraw while this node is under review.

4. Configure CC Recipients

You can define the CC scope. Recipient restrictions follow the same rules as approvers.

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5. Configure Approval Rules

You can configure multi-approver rules and whether approval comments are mandatory.

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Multi-approver mode:

• Joint approval (All must approve): Approved only when everyone approves.
• Any approval (One approves): Approved when any one approver approves.
• Joint approval (Percentage-based): Approved when the configured percentage is reached.
• Collect opinions (Result = Approve): Used to gather input; the result does not block downstream transitions.

Note: For All must complete review, if it is not selected, the node ends once the calculation conditions are met. If selected, the flow waits until all approvers have completed their reviews before moving to the next node, regardless of intermediate results.

You can also click the plus icon between nodes to add new nodes and branches.

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Conditional branches: Only one branch is selected to proceed, with priority from left to right. If none of the left branches match, the flow proceeds through the rightmost default branch.

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Parallel branches: Multiple branches can proceed at the same time. Any branch whose conditions are met will execute; the default branch always executes.

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V. Use Approval Flows in Projects

After configuring an approval flow, you can use it in a Waterfall Project.

First, open any Waterfall Project and go to Settings > Approvals to maintain the mapping between approval objects and approval flows.

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The approval objects listed here include all review objects under Waterfall Project > Reviews (these can be customized in the backend). Even if an approval flow is not set for an object, it will follow a default minimal approval flow (built-in and cannot be deleted).

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After maintaining the mapping, go to Waterfall Project > Reviews to initiate an approval flow.

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After selecting a review object, the system loads all approval nodes defined in the approval flow bound to that object. If the configuration uses Initiator selects, approvers must be selected manually.

After initiating a review, you can click View Approval Progress on the list page to monitor progress.

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A blue node indicates an approval that is in progress.

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A green node indicates an approval that is completed.

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When the flow reaches a node, Sanplex sends email reminders to the node’s approvers and CC recipients.

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In Dashboard > Pending > Reviews, you can view all approval items waiting for your review.

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VI. Use Approval Flows in Workflows

Select Workflow Approval as the approval type, design the approval flow, and then apply it within workflows.

1. Configure a Workflow

When creating a workflow, you can enable Approval directly.

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For an existing process, you can enable it via Approval Settings in the Advanced Editor.

If the workflow configurator is not a super administrator, the Approval Settings permission must be granted.

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After enabling approval, you can configure the Initiate Approval page and Approval page in Page Design.

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When enabling approval, the system checks for duplicate fields and actions. If duplicates exist, follow the prompts to resolve them.

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After approval is enabled, default fields, actions, and tabs are added automatically.

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Initiate / Withdraw / Approve related settings:

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Once the action configuration is complete, the approval capability is fully configured.

2. Extend Built-in Processes

If list data is extensive, you can further configure which fields appear on the Initiate and Approval pages.

Approval progress behaves the same as project approvals.

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3. Use Approvals

From the list page and detail page, users can initiate, approve, and withdraw approvals.

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