Approval Workflows
Approval Workflows help you manage structured decision-making on ticket requests such as expense sign-offs, IT access approvals, onboarding processes, or compliance-related reviews. ClearFeed allows you to define multi-level approval chains, notify approvers directly in Slack, and track every approval action inside the ticket.
Approvals is only available on the Internal HelpDesk Product Edition.
How to Configure Approval Workflows?
Navigate to Approval Workflows
From the left navigation bar in the WebApp, go to More → Approval Workflows.
Click Create Approval Workflow and enter a meaningful name.
Select Intake Form
Choose the form that will trigger the approval workflow when used for ticket creation.
Select any fields that should not be changed while the approval process is ongoing.
Participants Behavior
Automatically Add Approvers as Participants (Optional)- When enabled, all approvers are added to the ticket as participants so they can view and respond in the conversation. Learn More
Define Routing Rules
Routing rules determine when a particular approval chain should be used. Each rule contains two parts:
Conditions (When this rule applies)
Conditions are evaluated against the ticket’s fields. All conditions must match for the rule to be applied. If no rule matches, the Default Routing is used.
Examples:
Department = Finance
Request Type = Access Request
Location = APAC
Approval Sequence (Who must approve, and in what order)
After defining conditions, configure the ordered list of approvers for that rule. Approvals proceed level by level in the sequence you specify.
ClearFeed supports two types of approvers:
Specific User (Static Approver)
Select an internal user who will always approve at this level.
From Form Field (Dynamic Approver)
Choose a User Select field from the Intake Form. The approver for this level will be the user selected in that field. Dynamic Approvers are ideal when approvers depend on the requester’s context, such as:
Manager
Team lead
Project owner
Department owner
Regional approver
Backup Approver (Required)
Each dynamic approver must have a backup. The backup will be used if:
The field was removed from the form
The field exists but was not filled by the requester
How the Approval Process Works
Once the workflow is active, here is how ClearFeed evaluates and runs approvals:
When a user submits a ticket using the selected Intake Form:
An Approval Request is created and linked to the ticket
Ticket status cannot be closed until approvals finish
ClearFeed checks routing rules top-down and selects the first rule whose conditions match.
Approver Resolution
For each approver level:
If Static Approver is used: Assigned directly as configured.
If a Form Field has been used: ClearFeed evaluates in the following order:
Field exists? - If not → use backup
Field has a value?- If empty → use backup (Reason: “Field left empty”)
Resolved approver already used at a lower level? - If yes → level is skipped
Else → use dynamic approver value
Dynamic values and fallback results are shown in the Approval Chain.
Approval Execution
Approvers receive a Slack message and can approve or reject directly
If the Automatically add approvers as participants is enabled, approvers receive two messages from ClearFeed:
A message to approve or reject the approval request.
A notification that they have been added as a participant on the ticket, allowing them to view the conversation and send/receive messages.
If approved → next approver is notified
If rejected → the entire approval request is closed as rejected
All approval actions are logged privately on the ticket
Visibility in the UI
The logs for the Approval Workflow can be found in Ticket Activity, Approval Task View and Slack Triage Channel as Private Comments. It includes below information:
Static and dynamic approvers
When a backup approver was used
Skip reasons (duplicate, removed field, empty field)
Approval or rejection comments
Approval timestamps
Last updated