Automated Approver Collaborators
Written by Michelle Henley
Updated at July 21st, 2025
Table of Contents
In cases where an original approver is unavailable or out of office, users and user admins have the ability to assign an approver collaborator to their pending requests with an end date. You can add any active user as an automated approver collaborator, meaning that they do not need to be an approver or have an approver role.
Once a user is set as an automated approver collaborator, they are added to newly submitted, resubmitted, and in progress requests that the original approver is assigned.
How to set up an Automated Approver:
Users
To assign an automatic approver collaborator, click on the Settings icon at the top of the left navigation menu.
Next, add one or more user names as Collaborators and add an End Date. Click, Save Changes.
Note: The timestamp shown is based on the user's timezone; however, the time on the backend is stored in UTC.
For example, if a user sets their timestamp as 2:00 pm CST, and a user submits a request at 3:01 pm EST, they would not get added as approver collaborator since that's 2:01 pm CST for the approver collaborator.
Click, Save Changes.
Once Save Changes is selected, the selected approver collaborator(s) will be added to the following requests:
- any new or resubmitted requests assigned to the original approver
- any In Progress requests assigned to the original approver (even if the original approver has already completed their step)
Admins
User Admins can also set an automated approver collaborator on behalf of a user by clicking Admin → Access Management → User Management. 
Next, click the Settings icon for the selected user. 
In the Settings tab, add one or more user names as Collaborators and add an End Date. Click, Save Changes.
Note: If an admin sets a timestamp on behalf of another user who is in a different timezone, it will show for each user as their own timezone, but will still be the same UTC timestamp in the back end.
For example, if admin John (CST) sets a timestamp for Susan (EST) as 2:00 pm CST, it shows Susan in his settings as 3 pm EST; however, the system would store it as 7 pm UTC in the backend.
Once Save Changes is selected, the selected approver collaborator(s) will be added to the following requests:
- any new or resubmitted requests assigned to the original approver
- any In Progress requests assigned to the original approver (even if the original approver has already completed their step)
Reassigned Requests Not Automatically Assigned to Automated Approver Collaborators
The system will not assign automated approver collaborators to a request when you reassign its approver. To assign automated collaborators, you or an admin must save your automated approver collaborator settings, so the system adds those automated approver collaborators to all In Progress requests. The system will also automatically assign your automated approver collaborators when a request is resubmitted for the newly assigned approver.
When first assigning an automated approver collaborator, the following rules apply:
- Only internal users can be assigned as automated approver collaborators.
- The end date is optional and not required. If no end date is set, the selected approver collaborator will continue to be assigned newly submitted or resubmitted requests.
- Only Active users can be assigned as collaborators.
- There may be a minute or two delay between the time the approver is assigned and the time the change is reflected within a request(s).
After an automated approver collaborator is assigned the following rules apply:
- When an automated approver collaborator is automatically assigned to a request, a history action will show that the System User assigned the user as a collaborator. This action also notes on whose behalf the system assigned the collaboration permission.
Note: When an end date is reached, automated collaborators are not removed from any requests, the system only stops assigning them to any newly submitted or resubmitted requests.
If an assigned approver collaborator becomes inactive, the system will not assign the user any new requests. However, the system will not automatically remove them from requests that are In Progress.
How to remove an Automated Approver:
Users
- If an automated approver collaborator is removed, either from settings or user management, the user is removed from all In Progress and Completed requests, unless the approver collaborator has already taken action and has become the primary approver.
- Automated approver collaborators can always be manually removed from a specific request by following the instructions for Approver Collaboration
To remove an automatic approver collaborator, click on the Settings icon at the top of the left navigation menu.
Next, click the X next to the user's name who you want to remove. Click, Save Changes.
Admins
- If an automated approver collaborator is removed, either from settings or user management, the user is removed from all In Progress and Completed requests, unless the approver collaborator has already taken action and has become the primary approver.
- Automated approver collaborators can always be manually removed from a specific request by following the instructions for Approver Collaboration
User Admins can remove an automated approver collaborator on behalf of a user by clicking Admin → Access Management → User Management.
Next, click the Settings icon for the selected user.
In the Settings tab, click the X next to the user's name who you want to remove. Click, Save Changes.
When an automated approver is removed or the end date is reached, the following rules apply:
-
An Exclamation icon will be displayed if either 1) the end date has been reached or 2) an assigned approver has become inactive within the system.
Hover over the red exclamation point for additional text.
- If an automated approver is removed as a collaborator and they never took action on the request, the approver collaborator will not be readded if the request is ever updated and resubmitted.
- If an automated approver collaborator is removed manually from a user's settings or user admin, a history action will show that System User removed the user as a collaborator. This action also notes on whose behalf the system removed the collaboration.
Emails
- When a new request is submitted, or when it’s their turn to approve the request, the automated approver collaborator will be cc’d on the awaiting approval email notification that is also sent to the original approver.
- If there is a case where an automated approver collaborator is added while a request(s) is In Progress and the awaiting approval email notification has gone out previously, the added collaborator will not be notified via email. Instead, the requests will be displayed in the Shared with Me tab. In this scenario, the original approver may need to contact the collaborator to notify them that a request is awaiting their review.
- If an automated approver collaborator is assigned to a request where the primary approver's step was already completed, no email notification will be sent to the collaboration since no action is needed. (Unless the request is resubmitted and requires reapproval. In this case, the collaborator will be cc'd on the awaiting approval email sent to the original approver.)
Note: The system does not automatically remove approver collaborators if the original approver is reassigned.
For example, if approver A has automated approver collaborators assigned and approver A is reassigned to approver B, then the assigned approver collaborators for A still exist and can act on the request. Collaborators must be removed manually from the request by following the instructions for Approver Collaborators.