Mesh provides a powerful approval workflow engine, empowering you to craft a customized Travel request approval to meet your organization's unique needs. In addition to Travel workflows, the tool provides the option to create or edit workflows for create/edit workflows for card/budget (e.g., General Purpose and Subscription) and expenses (i.e., reimbursements).

Follow the steps to create approval workflows for both New and Edit Travel requests. 

1. Log in to the Mesh platform with an Admin profile. 

2. Navigate to the Company Settings, scroll to the Approval Workflows section, and click the Approval settings button. 

3. Click on Settings and check the relevant options for your organization.  

4. Click the 'New requests' or 'Edit requests' to view the last saved configuration. 

5. To modify the workflow, click the Edit button on the right. 

5a. Click on the + sign to add more steps. 

5b. When adding a new step, the approver can be either a Mesh role, an Employee within the organization, or a Group (e.g., Finance, Directors, etc.). Select the desired option and click the 'Add approver' button.

Note: All members of a designated group will receive a notification, yet only one member needs to take action by either approving or declining the request. You can reuse previously created groups, which become accessible after you create and publish the workflow. Each group can accommodate up to 50 members, and you can create multiple groups as needed.

5c. If you made a mistake or need to change a step entered, click on that step. You can change the type (i.e., Mesh role, Employee, or Group) or click the Delete button to delete the step and start over by adding a new step. 

6. When incorporating an approval step, you're presented with two choices: 'Always' or 'Conditionally'.

6a. If you assign a conditional step for an 'Approving Manager', you can decide whether their intervention is required or not if the request originates from users with an Admin or Pro profile.

6b. You can add Custom Field-based conditions. For example, if the request comes from a certain department send it to a certain approver. 

Note: you can set a gatekeeper if a requester does not specify a value for a custom field. In the following example, if the department is NOT specified involve Matt Ryan in the approval process. 

6c. If you set up a Group, all the Group members will receive the notification to approve the step, but only one of them is needed for the approval.

6d. You can modify the step name to facilitate a clearer comprehension of the approval process for anyone reviewing the request.

Here is an example: 

Note: The updated name will reflect across all forms containing the list of approvers. 

7. If you are satisfied with the approval workflow click Publish for the changes to be applied.  

Click the Publish button again to confirm your selection. 

7a. An error message will appear when attempting to publish If the minimum requirements are unmet.

Note: At least one unconditional approval step is needed to publish an approval flow. 

8. The workflow editor offers a zoom-in/zoom-out function. If you click on the close icon (i.e. x) while working on a flow you will get a warning message with the option to stay or leave the editor. 

Disclaimer: The approval workflow editor is robust and flexible, allowing users with an Administrator profile to replicate their company's card/budget approval process. Mesh Payments does not provide recommendations for approval workflows. As a result, we cannot be held responsible for approval workflows created by customers. This includes card/budget approval workflows that may be considered 'non-logical' or ones where steps were intentionally or unintentionally omitted.