Note: the changes below will only come into effect after 21 December 2023. Before going deeper into approvals, do have a look at how policies work too.
Whenever a booking is made that requires approval, the booking is actually on hold and not processed. This also means that the price, seating, or rooms are subject to change, until it has been fully approved.
1. How approvals work
When approving a booking, 3 people are involved:
- A booker: the person making the booking. This can be the traveller them self, but also someone else like a travel manager or admin.
- Traveller(s): the people travelling in this booking. Keep in mind that 1 booking can have multiple travellers in it (eg when you book a flight for 2 people at once).
- Approver(s): the person that is allowed to approve this booking (and ultimately proceed with payment and ticketing).
Approvers are either the manager of a group that the travellers belong to, or the super admin of the company (if the traveller doesn't have an assigned manager). Learn more about groups and managers here.
Whenever someone wants to book a trip which is out of policy the approval flow will be enabled. When proceeding to the confirmation page a screen like this will show up.
Step 1 - reviewing the booking:
A message explains that this booking requires approval. All managers and admins that are allowed to approve this booking are listed here too.
Step 2 - submitting:
Once the booker submits for approval an email request will go out to all the related approver(s) who can review the booking.
Step 3 - approving / rejecting:
If the manager approves or rejects the booking, a message will go to the booker and traveller(s). After approval the booking will be processed with our providers (flight/hotel/train).
Step 4 - ticket issuance:
Once the tickets have been processed by our providers, the booking confirmation is sent to the travellers.
3. Understanding who the approvers are.
Understanding approvers can get a little tricky. By default the approvers are always based on the travellers in the booking. This means that, if the traveller is part of a "Sales" group, the manager of the "Sales" group is the approver for any of their bookings.
Making a booking for yourself (the booker = the traveller)
Mikaela is making a flight booking for herself and requires approval. Cliff is Mikaela's manager so he will receive the request after which he can reject or approver her booking.
Making a booking for multiple other travellers
When making bookings for multiple travellers that are part of different groups, things can get a bit more complicated.
Example setup:
- Mick is part of the "sales" group
- David is the manager of the "sales" group
- Eva is part of the "marketing" group
- Regina is the manager of "marketing" group
- All bookings require approval
Jesslyn makes a booking for Mick and Eva and approval is required for both travellers. Because Mick and Eva are part of two different groups, the approval request goes to all their managers (David and Regina).
David and Regina will receive an approval request, the first one to approve or reject will close the booking. So this means either person can take action.
After rejection or approval, an email goes to Jessly, Mick and Eva (booker & travellers).
We also have the capability to make a booking for multiple people, which can get a little confusing. For example if I make a booking for David, Gillian, Hugh, and Sam, and they are all in different groups with different approvers, every approver will receive an email.
In the example above it would be Carlos, Felicia + the other managers that are allowed to approve the booking.
IMPORTANT: Approvals are made on a first come, first serve basis. This means that if there are 5 different approvers that get an approval request. The FIRST approver that approves the booking, approves it for all of them.
In some scenarios, it's also possible to change the approver when making a booking. You can learn more about that in this help article