Custom Approval Workflow

The approval process is the most palpable need for every operation in any organization. At any given moment, in organizations across the world, operations go on to hold while waiting for approvals. In most organizations, approvals are either paper-based or on emails. And depending on the size of the organization, this approval process could take weeks, months, or even years. Sometimes, approval is needed to even get started.  These systems get very complicated when the size of the organization is big and the approvals get complicated and inaccuracies dive into the system. Complexities and inaccuracies also increase the pendency rate and status tracking gets quite difficult.

Thus, no matter what stage requires approval, having a standard approval process in place can improve the workflow and dramatically increase productivity and allow the organizations to streamline their process.

Paytm Payouts allows the admin user to create a customized approval workflow and also allows other users from the organization to be a part of the approval process at different hierarchical levels. Paytm payouts allow the corporates to define complex multi-staged workflows in the system. The workflows can be created by the admin user where every level can be constraint-based and logically monitored. The approval timeline can also be easily tracked at each stage of the approval workflow. Parallel approvals can also be done.

To get started, the admin user can create a workflow as per the organizational/ operational requirements.  Follow the steps below to create a workflow:

1. In the left main menu, go to ‘Settings’.
2. Under the 'Dashboard Settings', select ‘Customer Approval Workflow’.
3. Click ‘Create Approval Workflow’.
4. Fill in the details for the name and description (optional) of this workflow. For Example, the workflow can be named after a specific operation for which it is being designed, such as for paying salaries, for adding vendor invoice etc.
5. Select the ‘Product’ for which this workflow will be active. For Example, if this workflow is being created for ‘Money Transfer’, or for ‘Vendor invoice’ module etc.
6. Select the specific ‘Operation’ for which this workflow will come into action for the above-selected module. The most common operation in organizations is to have an approval flow for making payments while some organizations may also need an approval system to add invoices in the systems.
7. Now select the disbursal accounts for which this workflow will be applicable.

   Note:

   • Select Any Account: This option makes the workflow applicable for any existing disbursal account as well as for any disbursal accounts that will be created in the future in this merchant account
   • Select Some Account: This option allows one or more disbursal accounts currently existing in the merchant account. Hence the approval workflow which will be created will be applicable to only selected disbursal accounts. 
8. Click ‘Proceed to Approval Settings’ which is the next stage of creating the approval workflow.

   💡  Tip
   This section defines the constraints for ‘When’, ‘What’ and ‘Who’ for each stage of approval workflow.

9. Go to ‘Stage1’ and start setting the details for constraints. The ‘When’ section allows to set up the rules for ‘when’ the approval workflow should be triggered. For Example, the constraints can be set for the following:
   1. Transfer Amount- to set limits for amount,
   2. Type of Transfer- to define bank and wallet transfer rules and
   3. Transfer Mode- to set rules for API or dashboard.

   Note: In case the Transfer mode is not defined in the constraints, the workflow is applicable for both API and dashboard by default.

10. User can also set up pertains for each constraint type such as <, >, = and also define AND/ OR rules.
11. ‘Approval Required From’  sets up the rules about ‘ What’ will happen when the above conditions are fulfilled. This basically is the action point for the approval workflow.
12. This stage also defines the rules for ‘ Who’ will approve for each stage.
13. From the ‘ Request type’ section, the admin can choose if the approval is required from ‘Any’ one user or ‘All’ the users for that stage of an approval workflow. 
14. To add more stages in the approval workflow, click on ‘Add More Stages’.
15. Click on ‘Create Workflow’.
    The new workflow can be seen in the list view.
16. Activate the workflow from the Status button to bring it into action.

To view or edit any workflow, follow the steps below:

1. In the left main menu, go to ‘Settings’.
2. Under ‘Dashboard Settings’, select ‘Customer Approval Workflow’.
3. From the list view, any approval workflow can be enabled or disabled using the toggle button.
4. Select any approval workflow from the list and click on the right to view the details. It shows the details such as name, product, operation, accounts, etc.
5. Click the  icon to start editing the workflow.
6. Make the desired changes for approval flow settings and click ‘Update Workflow’.

The approval processes get triggered when all the conditions set in the flow are fulfilled and the corresponding approval requests are lined up in the respective user’s account. The user needs to follow the steps below to approve or reject the approval requests.

1. The user who needs to approve or reject the requests will login through his account.
2. In the left main menu, go to the ‘Approvals’ section.
   The right side section has approval sections for different modules such as money transfer, bill payments, invoice, payment links etc. All the pending approvals can be seen in the list view under the specific section.
3. Use the ‘Approve’ or ‘Reject’ button to take necessary actions against each approval request.
4. To approve/reject up to 10 entries altogether, select each entry through the check box and click the ‘Approve All’ or ‘Reject All’ button at the bottom.

💡  Tip
Use the top filter to refine results for requests which are ‘Pending’ on the user, ‘Approved’ & ‘Rejected’ by the user. Also, the results can be filtered using the 'Pending on others’ option where the user can view the status of a request which is still pending on other users present in the workflow.

Note: Click on any approval entry and see the approval workflow timeline which shows the details of every stage.

Manage Bulk Approval Requests

When a bulk request is initiated, for example, a bulk money transfer request is initiated, the approval requests for each entry gets lined up in the ‘Approvals’ section in the left main menu. Each entry can be individually accepted or rejected by the user. To process multiple entries in bulk, follow the steps below:

1. Go to ‘Approvals’ in the left main menu.
2. Click the ‘Download Bulk Approval file’ button.
3. Click the ‘Download Approval file’ from the drop-down menu.
4. Go to the ‘Download Bulk Approval file’ again and select ‘View download History’ from the drop-down menu to view the downloaded bulk request file.
5. From the list of files generated on this page, click the ‘Download’ button to save the bulk request excel file.
6. Enter ‘Accept’ or ‘Reject’ against each entry in the excel file. The user can also choose to leave blank against any entry for which no action has to be taken.

   Note: It is mandatory to mention the reason for rejection in the bulk upload file.

7. In the approvals section, click the ‘Upload Bulk Approval File’.
8. Click the ‘Upload Approval File’ and then click ‘Proceed’.
9. Click ‘Submit File’ to start processing bulk approval requests.

Note: Use ‘Show Archive’ button to take actions for transactions initiated on or before 6th May 2020.