Introduction

Approval delegations allow one user to approve requests on behalf of another. This is useful when an approver is on vacation, out of office, or needs a trusted delegate to handle approvals on an ongoing basis. When a delegation is active, the delegate sees the delegator's approval requests in their own dashboard and approval lists, and can approve, deny, or take any action just as the original approver would.

FTE Tree supports two paths for creating delegations: admin delegations managed by organization administrators, and self-service delegations that individual approvers create for themselves. Both paths create the same underlying delegation record, so a delegation appears the same in the delegate's workspace regardless of how it was created.

Admin Delegations

Administrators with the approval configuration permission can manage delegations between any two users in the organization. This is the full-control option and is typically used for planned coverage, role transitions, or long-term reassignment.

To manage admin delegations, navigate to Settings > User Settings > Approval Delegations. From the list you can create a new delegation, edit an existing one, or remove one that is no longer needed.

Creating an Admin Delegation

From the admin delegation list, select Create Delegation and complete the form fields described in the Delegation Fields section below. Administrators can choose any user in the organization as the delegator and any other user as the delegate.

Self-Service Delegations

Self-service delegations let users arrange their own coverage without involving an administrator. When enabled, any user who is assigned as an approver in an approval workflow can create a delegation where they are the delegator.

Enabling Self-Service Delegation

Self-service delegation is controlled by an organization-level setting. To enable it, navigate to Settings > Organization Settings and turn on Allow Self-Service Delegation. When this setting is disabled, only administrators can create delegations.

Managing Your Own Delegations

When self-service is enabled, users can access their delegations from Approvals > My Delegations in the main navigation. This page shows two lists:

  • Delegations Given: Delegations where you are the delegator. You can create, edit, or remove these.
  • Delegations Received: Delegations where you are the delegate. These are read-only on this page, but the delegator's approval requests will appear in your dashboard while the delegation is active.

When you create a self-service delegation, you are automatically set as the delegator. You only choose the delegate, dates, and optional reason.

Delegation Fields

The same fields apply whether a delegation is created in admin or self-service mode:

  • Delegator: The user whose approval requests will be handled by the delegate. In self-service mode this is always you.

  • Delegate: The user who will be approving requests on behalf of the delegator.

  • Start Date: The date when the delegation becomes active.

  • End Date: The date when the delegation expires. Leave blank for a delegation with no expiration.

  • Active: Whether the delegation is currently enabled. Deactivating a delegation pauses it without deleting it, which is useful if you expect to reuse the same pair later.

  • Reason: An optional note explaining the purpose of the delegation (for example, "out on leave through April").

Rules and Restrictions

  • A user cannot delegate to themselves.
  • Each delegator and delegate combination can exist only once at a time. To change dates or reason, edit the existing record rather than creating a new one.
  • The end date must be on or after the start date.
  • A delegation is only in effect when Active is enabled and today falls within the start and end dates (or on or after the start date when no end date is set).

Separation of Duties

Delegation does not bypass separation of duties. A delegate who is also the requester of a particular approval request cannot approve that request through delegation. In that case the step is handled by another approver or escalated according to the workflow's configured escalation role.

Audit Trail

Every change to a delegation (create, update, delete) is recorded in the audit trail. When a delegate takes action on a request, the audit entry notes that the approval was performed on behalf of the delegator. See Audit and Data Integrity for more details on how audit events work.

Need Help?

If you have questions about configuring approval delegations, please contact us or email us at support@ftetree.com.