Hand off approvals while you're away

Before you go on leave, hand your approvals to a colleague, called your delegate. Until the end date you choose, your delegate can approve and reject anything waiting on you, with your authority, and each decision they make is labelled as made on your behalf. Requests keep moving, and nobody has to override anything while you're away.

In the example used throughout this chapter, Priya Shah approves purchase orders up to $10,000, and deposits and bill payments of any amount. Before her holiday she hands her approvals to Jordan Lee, the finance lead. Jordan isn't on any policy, so everything Jordan approves while Priya is away is clearly done on Priya's behalf.

Before you begin

To…	You need…
hand off your own approvals	nothing extra: anyone can open Orders → Approvals and add a delegation for themselves
set up or revoke a hand-off for someone else	override rights: administrators and anyone with Approval Policies → Override & re-route have them

• Your delegate must be a user in this account.
• Choose someone who doesn't raise the documents you approve. Unless the policy's Self-approval rule is Allow — the requester counts like any other approver, a delegate can't approve a request they raised themselves. If Dana Reyes, who raises the purchase orders, covers for Priya, Dana's own purchase orders still wait for Sam.
• A hand-off lasts at most 90 days.

Hand off your own approvals

1. Go to Orders → Approvals.

2. Click the My delegation tab, beside Approvals at the top of the page.

   The Delegations — out-of-office hand-offs card lists your current and upcoming hand-offs, including any where you're covering for someone else. If there are none, it reads No current or upcoming delegations.

3. Click Add delegation.

4. In Delegate, choose who approves while you're away, for example Jordan Lee.

5. Check From. It starts at the current time; set a later date and time if the hand-off should start later.

6. Set Until to the date and time you're back.

   Times are in your company's time zone, which the hint under the fields names, for example At most 90 days. Times are in America/Los_Angeles, your company's timezone (Settings → General → Date & Time). The list of hand-offs shows each time with its zone, for example Oct 21, 2026 5:00 PM PDT.

7. Under Documents, keep Purchase orders, Vendor deposits and Bill payments, or remove the ones your delegate shouldn't cover.

   Your delegate covers only the document types left in this field. Anything else keeps waiting on you.

8. Optionally, add a Note of up to 500 characters, such as when you're back or who covers what.

9. Click Add delegation.

   What you'll see: the message Delegation added, and a row in the card with your name under Approver, your delegate's name under Delegate, and a Status of Active. A hand-off that starts later shows Scheduled until its start time. Documents reads All approvals when it covers all three types.

Then tell your delegate, and ask them to turn on approval emails (see Make sure your delegate hears about requests).

What your delegate can do

From the From time until the Until time:

• Your requests reach them. Everything waiting on you, including requests that were already waiting when the hand-off started, shows in their Waiting on me list on Orders → Approvals. On the document's Approval card, the Waiting on line names them as, for example, Jordan Lee (delegate for Priya Shah).
• They approve with your authority. They can approve or reject anything you could, up to your limit. Anything over your limit still needs the people the policy names for it.
• Their decisions are labelled. A decision your delegate makes carries the chip On behalf of Priya Shah on the timeline, so everyone can see who decided and for whom.
• They fill your place on a step that requires everyone. When a step's Requires is All, every listed person must approve. Your delegate's approval counts as yours, so the step doesn't wait for you to come back. Nobody else can fill your place: not even someone from a higher tier.
• You can still approve too. The hand-off doesn't lock you out. You and your delegate share one place on each step, so once either of you decides, the other can't decide that step again.

A few limits apply:

• One approval per person. If your delegate is also listed on the same step in their own right, they can approve it only once. On a step that requires everyone, that leaves your place empty. Pick a different delegate, or ask an administrator to override the request.
• Hand-offs don't pass along. If your delegate is away too and has handed off their own approvals, their delegate can't approve your requests.
• Their own requests. Unless self-approval is allowed, your delegate can't approve a request they raised. It waits for another approver.

Make sure your delegate hears about requests

Your delegate gets an Approval Requested alert for each new request that waits on you, and an Approval Reminder when one has waited too long. You get them too, because you're still an approver.

Email for every alert starts off, and the alert bell is easy to miss when someone is covering extra work. Ask your delegate to turn on email:

1. Your delegate goes to Settings → Alerts & Notifications → My Notifications.
2. In the Purchase Orders group, they switch Email on for Approval Requested and Approval Reminder, with Frequency set to Instant.
3. They click Save Changes.

These rows appear in their My Notifications as soon as the hand-off is set up, even if it starts later, and stay until it ends. The Approver email notifications card on the policy page lists only the people on the policy, so it can't turn on email for a delegate who isn't on it. See Get approval requests by email.

note

Requests that were already waiting when the hand-off started don't send your delegate a new alert. They appear in their Waiting on me list, and reminders for them go to your delegate too. For a hand-off that starts later, allow up to an hour after the start time for the list to catch up; your delegate can act on a request they open from the document straight away.

Set up a hand-off for someone else

When an approver goes on leave without handing off, administrators and anyone with Approval Policies → Override & re-route can do it for them.

1. Go to Settings → Purchasing → Approval Policies.

2. Click the Delegations tab.

   The card lists every current and upcoming hand-off in the account, with the intro While an approver is away, their delegate can approve with the same authority.

3. Click Add delegation.

4. In Approver going away, choose the approver. It starts with your own name.

5. Fill in Delegate, From, Until, Documents and Note as in Hand off your own approvals.

6. Click Add delegation.

The delegate can act on the approver's requests from the From time, including requests already waiting. Tell them, because those waiting requests don't send them a new alert.

People without Approval Policies → Override & re-route also see the Delegations tab, if they can view the policy page. For them it works like My delegation: it lists only the hand-offs they made or cover, and has no Approver going away field.

End a hand-off early

A hand-off stops on its own at the Until time, so you don't need to do anything when you're back on schedule. To stop it sooner:

1. Open Orders → Approvals → My delegation, or the Delegations tab on the policy page.

2. Click Revoke on the hand-off's row.

3. In the Revoke delegation? dialog, click Revoke.

   The dialog explains, for example, Jordan Lee will immediately stop approving on behalf of Priya Shah. Requests they already decided are unaffected.

   What you'll see: the message Delegation revoked, and the row leaves the list.

Only the person who handed off can revoke a hand-off, along with administrators and anyone with Approval Policies → Override & re-route. A delegate sees the hand-offs they cover in their own My delegation list, but their Revoke button is greyed out, with the tooltip Only Priya Shah or an admin can revoke this., for example.

To change a hand-off's dates or delegate, revoke it and add a new one.

If something goes wrong

Message	What it means
A delegation can last at most 90 days	Shorten the hand-off. For a longer absence, add a second hand-off when the first ends, or change the policy.
This overlaps an existing delegation for the same documents — revoke it first.	The approver already has a hand-off for some of the same documents during those dates. Revoke it, then add the new one. Hand-offs for different document types can overlap.

For every other message, see Delegation messages in the Policy settings reference.

Next steps

• Approve or reject a request: what your delegate does with a request.
• Get approval requests by email
• Override or re-route a stuck request: when an approver left without handing off.
• How approvals work: tiers, steps and who can approve what.