Send approval requests to the person authorised to decide

What this means for your practice

Define approval responsibility independently from editing activity. Keep a deputy or reassignment route so an absent individual does not leave the workflow ownerless.

A practical conversation with your supplier

Ask to remove the original reviewer from a fictional approval task. Who can reassign it, and does the reason remain visible? The new reviewer should see the correct version and requested decision. Keep editing and approval roles understandable to the people using them.

Plan the first improvement

Create a simple approval map using the types of work your team actually handles. A reception procedure, a service page and a purchasing request may need different decision makers. Record the role authorised to approve each and how a deputy is selected, with the organisation's own rules guiding that decision. Avoid making the workflow depend permanently on an individual name that will become outdated. The reviewer should receive the relevant material, the requested decision and any deadline context without needing to reconstruct the request from messages.

Agree what happens if they believe they are the wrong approver. A visible reassignment route is preferable to leaving the task untouched or forwarding a notification while the system still records the original owner. Review the approval map when responsibilities change. Useful signs include fewer requests returned because they reached the wrong person and fewer items stalled solely because the original reviewer is absent.

How to check the result

Count approval requests without a valid responsible reviewer.