Approval templates

An approval template defines one type of request: the form people fill in, who approves it and in what order, who is allowed to send it, and what Site Connect records automatically once it's approved. Every request in the Approval inbox comes from a template.

Menu: Approvals › Approval templates

Where to find it

Menu: Approvals › Approval templates · Address: hub.siteconnect.ai/approvals/templatesWho can use it: everyone can see the list. Creating and editing templates needs the Approval template permission (create/edit) — admins and managers have it by default. See Roles and permissions.

The templates your workspace starts with

A new workspace comes with ten ready-to-use templates. All of them are active, anyone can submit them, and — unless noted — they go to the sender's direct manager, with a 3-day deadline that skips weekends.

Request type	What happens once it's approved
Time off (leave)	The leave is recorded. Paid leave is deducted from the employee's leave balance.
Work from home	The days in the request count as work-from-home in attendance.
Late arrival	That day isn't counted as late.
Early leave	That day isn't counted as leaving early.
Attendance correction (forgot to clock in or out)	That day's clock-in / clock-out is corrected in attendance.
Overtime	The overtime hours are recorded for timesheets.
Business trip	The trip days aren't counted as absence.
Out of office during the day	The time away isn't counted as absence.
Shift swap with a coworker	Goes to the coworker first, then to the manager.
Expense request	Approval only, plus the payment details in the request.

You can rename any of these, change their fields and approvers, or pause the ones you don't use.

Before you roll them out

• The built-in templates don't have a Process manager yet. Add one the first time you edit a template — you can't save it without one.
• Open the expense request's Form tab and check the currency on the Amount field.
• Built-in templates can't be deleted, only paused.

The template list

The list shows Code, Process name, Category, Created by, User (who may submit it), Created date, End date, Last updated and Status. Use the views at the top (All, Active, Suspended) or filter by Status and Integration type.

Each row has quick actions: Edit, Duplicate, a switch to activate or pause it, Change history, and Delete. Delete is only possible for a template that no request uses yet — otherwise pause it instead. Templates linked to attendance, leave or expenses show a lock instead of the delete button.

Approval type (top right) manages the categories templates are grouped under. Use the arrows to set their order — it's the order people see when they click Submit new request.

Create a template

1. Click Create template.
2. Which approval template do you want to create? Pick a ready-made starting point (for example Leave request, Overtime request or Attendance correction), or Create from scratch.
3. Work through the four tabs at the top — Information, Form, Workflow and Settings (described below).
4. Click Save.
5. Click Activate so people can start submitting it.

While you edit, a draft is saved in your browser (Draft saved). If you close the page by accident, you're offered to Restore it next time.

Information tab

Field	What it's for
Icon	Click to pick a symbol and color. People see it in the request gallery.
Process name	The request type's name, e.g. "Tool purchase". Required.
Description	One line shown under the name in the gallery.
Category	Groups the template in the gallery. Pick one or type a new one. Required.
Members allowed to submit requests	All employees, By department, By role or Assign a person. Only those people can submit the request.
Process manager	People who can edit this template and see every request created from it. At least one is required.
Validity period	Start date and End date, or tick Never ends. Outside this period nobody can submit the request.

Form tab

The left panel has two parts:

• System components — fields every template has: Proposal name (always on), Assignee, Followers (CC), Priority level, Description and Attachments. Click the eye icon to show or hide the optional ones.
• Component — fields you can add, grouped as Input (text, numbers, amounts, phone, email, URL), Date & time (dates, periods), Choice (dropdowns, multi-select, checkboxes), People & departments, File (images and attachments), Location (GPS), Advanced (formulas, tables, references to another request) and Layout (description blocks, grouping, dividers).

Click a component to add it, then click the field in the preview to configure it on the right: Field name, Required, options, and Conditional display (show the field only when another field has a certain value).

Locked fields

Templates that update attendance, leave or expenses have a few fields with a lock icon. Site Connect reads those fields when the request is approved, so you can rename them but not delete them.

Workflow tab

The workflow runs top to bottom, from the submission to the end. Click + between two steps to add one:

Step	What it does
Approve	An approver approves or rejects.
Assign work	Creates a task for someone to carry out (the request continues when it's done).
CC	Notifies people without asking them to approve.
Condition	Only one branch runs, depending on values in the form — e.g. expenses over a certain amount go to the owner.
Parallel branches	All branches run at the same time, each with its own approvers.

Click a step to set it up:

• Step name — e.g. "Site manager approves".
• Handler tab — choose who handles the step: Assign a person, Role, User group, Direct manager (or a level-2 / level-3 manager), Department head, The requester, Requester picks, Contacts in the form or Departments in the form. Then set what happens When there are multiple people: All must approve, Only one person needed, or One after another.
• Handling deadline — how many days (or hours) the approver has, whether to Skip weekends, and whether to Allow deadline edits.
• Special handling — When no approver can be found (for example Hand back to the process admin or Approve automatically), what to do when this step Duplicates the previous step, and When the submitter is also the approver (e.g. Skip automatically or Hand to the manager).
• Form permissions tab — for each field, whether the approver can see it (View only), change it (Allow editing), must fill it (Required), or doesn't see it at all.
• Action permissions tab — which buttons the approver gets. Approve, Reject and Comments are on by default; you can also turn on Allow transferring requests, Allow adding/removing approvers, Allow returning to the approval flow and Return to sender. Under Response note required, choose Optional, Only when rejecting or When approving or rejecting.

Settings tab

• When the request is approved → What the system does: choose whether approval only records the decision (No integration) or also updates another part of Site Connect — time off, attendance correction, work from home, late arrival, early leave, overtime, business trip or out of office. The fields Site Connect needs are listed below the choice; if any are missing, click Add back missing fields →.
• Other settings:
  • Block administrators from viewing/editing the request — only the submitter and the people in the workflow can see these requests.
  • Order code prefix — e.g. TOOLS gives request codes like TOOLS-2026-001.
  • Auto-archive after (days) — 0 means never.
  • Notification — Notify the submitter at every new step and Notify followers (CC).

Pause, duplicate or review changes

• Pause a template: open it and click the status button next to Save (it reads Suspended while the template is active), then confirm Pause this template?. People can't submit new requests from a paused template; requests already sent carry on normally. Click Activate to turn it back on.
• Duplicate: from the list, click Duplicate. The copy starts paused so you can adjust it before activating.
• Change history: from the list, click Change history to see who changed the template and when.

Good to know

• Changing a template affects new requests. Requests already in progress keep running.
• A template can limit how far back people may pick a date (Restrict selectable dates) and how many requests each person may send per month (Monthly submission limit). Both are settings on the attendance reference field in attendance-type templates.
• If a request goes to the wrong person, check the Handler of each step and the sender's manager in Employees and Teams / Departments.

Related

• Approval inbox
• Time off
• Adjustment approvals
• Roles and permissions