Automating Internal vs External Team Approval Requests.

You may have times when you need a particular request to be approved and then have it move onto an altogether separate group of people who are required to go through the same but separate process. This article is about how you can completely automate this process with Approval Donkey and Zapier.

Business approvals - Internal vs External

For example, you may have an internal management team that is required to approve a new hire but then an external team like a board that is required to provide the final sign-off only after the internal management team has approved things.

How do I set this workflow up?

Firstly, we would advise getting your separate Panels set-up on Approval Donkey in advance. One Panel would be the first group to receive the initial request and would be the trigger Panel on Zapier ‘Approval Status Updated’.

The second Panel would be the action ‘Create New Approval’ on Zapier. When the first group (Panel) approves anything dedicated to them Zapier picks this up and automatically creates a new approval request to the second group (Panel).

We have provided a Zap template for this so you can get going really quickly, click the link below to get this workflow. Zapier then steps you through how to set these up to your requirements.

Get this workflow here.

Case Study – Adecco Group Germany

This article is about how the Adecco Group Germany have managed to completely automate and streamline what was a very time intensive, repetitive and laborious task. They have utilised a variety of applications to achieve this with Approval Donkey playing a central role in the workflow.

Zapier workflow with Approval Donkey

By utilising Approval Donkey’s integration with Zapier they were able to capture requests from a Typeform Online Form apply a Zapier filter to allocate the request to the correct Panel (approval workflow) then utilising Approval Donkey’s action Zap to create a new approval request that is automatically sent to all members added to the Panel with any workflow rules being applied. The captured information is then posted to a Google Sheet.

Approval Donkey then takes over and manages the approval side of things to ensure requests are sent, responses are made and reminder notifications are sent. Approvers can complete their requests directly from email or by logging into their personalised Dashboard where they can easily see what they are required to respond to and a full history of each request.

When the request is approved or declined Adecco then uses Approval Donkey’s trigger Zap to kick off another workflow that updates the Google Sheets row and then inform the person who made the initial request via the Typeform form what the outcome of their request is by emailing via Gmail.

Streamlining business automation

All this means requests are completed much faster with automation meaning loads of time is saved that the Adecco Team can allocate to more value add tasks.

Example - Manage social media posts with Approval Donkey

We are constantly amazed with the unique ways our customers use Approval Donkey and this one below is one we never imagined so we are stoked to include it.

Question from customer:

Hi! What I would like is an approval system for social media with Zapier.

Step 1) New message in RSS feed

Step 2) Send approval to team

Step 3) when approval is successful, send tweet with information from RSS feed

Answer from Approval Donkey:

Hi,

I think you could really easily create this workflow using Zapier with Approval Donkey in the middle. You would need to create 2 Zaps as per below.

Let us know if this works for you and please let me know how you get on or if you have any further questions (we can keep it anonymous if preferred).

Regards, Ben