Out of office and delegation functionality is now in Approve

An approval request can arrive just as the person who needs to answer heads out on leave. Without cover, everyone else is left waiting for someone who's away.

SweetHawk Approve for Zendesk now has out of office and delegation functionality. Approvers can schedule their absence, choose someone to cover new requests and keep track of what's been delegated.

Set your out of office

Everyone who approves can set themselves out of office. Zendesk agents can use the Approve top bar app or the approval portal. People who receive requests by email, Slack or Microsoft Teams use the portal.

Go to Settings > Out of office and turn on I'm out of office. Then choose:

• Start now to turn it on straight away.
• Schedule for later to choose a start date and time.

Add an optional Until date and time to switch it off automatically. Leave it blank if you'd rather turn it off yourself.

Send new approvals to a delegate

Switch on Delegate my approvals and enter an email address in Delegate to. While you're out of office, new approvals sent to you are forwarded to that person.

They respond as normal, and their decision is recorded and logged under their own identity. The approval timeline notes that you were out of office and the approval was delegated automatically.

No delegate? The step still moves

If the other approvers on a step can cover without you, Approve marks you Abstained and the step carries on. If your response is required, you stay in so the approval doesn't time out.

Hand off a single approval any time

You can also delegate one approval, or several at once, whenever you like. Click Delegate on the approval, or tick a few and use the Delegate button above the list. Anything you've handed over shows under Delegated, so you can still see where it's up to.

See it in Approve

Out of office and delegation are included in the Approve Pro plan. The full setup, including scheduling, chained delegates and what happens to approvals already waiting on you, is in the help centre guide: Setting up out of office and delegation in Approve.

Want to take a look? See how Approve works, or book a time with us to talk through how it'd fit your approval process.