Multi-Level Approval Workflows

The problem

Purchase requests stall because approval chains live in spreadsheets, email, and the heads of a few finance people. Nobody can see where a request is stuck, and escalation means chasing someone in a hallway or a chat thread. When auditors ask who approved what and under which policy, reconstructing the chain takes days.

How it runs on Neblex

A Neblex flow picks up new purchase requests from NetSuite and reads the approval matrix from Data Tables: amount thresholds, department chains, and category-specific policies in one editable place. Conditional branching builds the right approver sequence for each request, whether that is one manager or a multi-step chain ending at the CFO.

Each approval step pauses the run until a decision is made, with the request appearing in the approver task inbox and a Slack notification pointing to it. When a step is overdue, the approver gets a reminder and your escalation flow brings in the next approver, and tasks can be reassigned when someone is out. Rejections route back to the requester with the reason attached.

Every decision, reminder, and escalation is written to a tamper-evident, hash-chained audit trail, so the full chain is answerable in one place. Flow changes are governed too: edits move from dev to prod through environments with promotion approvals, and role-based access controls who can edit the approval matrix.

Step by step

1. 1
   Detect new requestsThe flow watches NetSuite for new purchase requests using poll-based change detection.
2. 2
   Build the approval chainThe approval matrix in Data Tables maps amount, department, and category to an ordered list of approvers.
3. 3
   Request each approvalApproval steps pause the run at each level, with a task assigned in the inbox and a Slack notification to the approver.
4. 4
   Escalate stalled stepsSLA timers with business-hours awareness remind first, then escalate to the next approver or a named delegate.
5. 5
   Write back the outcomeApproved requests are updated in NetSuite for purchasing to act on, and rejections return to the requester with the reason.
6. 6
   Keep the audit trailEvery decision and escalation is recorded on a hash-chained audit trail for compliance review.

Platform capabilities used

• Poll-based change detection
• Data Tables approval matrix
• Approval steps that pause the run
• Task inbox with reassignment
• Business-hours SLA escalation
• Hash-chained audit trail

Common questions