Purchase Approval Routing: The Right Approver and a Due Time on Every Request

Approval chains with people missing from them

Purchase approval is a chain. The routing policy sets who approves based on amount and category, a delegate steps in when an approver is away, and each step has a due time. Decisions arrive in batches by email, people go on unplanned leave, and SLA sweeps escalate whatever has sat too long. Each rule is simple. The hard part is keeping every open request on the right person while the rules keep firing.

The requests live in ClickUp. Approvers' out-of-office blocks and the company holiday calendar are in Google Calendar, decision batches and HR coverage notices arrive in Outlook, and the routing policy and sweep notices sit in Google Drive. When a batch arrives, it gets applied to every request that looks related. When an approver goes on leave, approved requests get rerouted along with waiting ones. At the end of the week, the counts come from memory.

Who works in the room

A question about a chain, a delegate or a due time goes to Ryan, the default agent. Anything that arrives in the approvals mailbox belongs to Nova, which reads Outlook through the procurement ops lead's account, checked on every call. When Nova applies a batch or a coverage notice, it mentions Ryan in the same thread so the chains and due times are rebuilt for the requests that changed. An automation opens the routing thread every Monday morning and flags any request whose due time passes, which feeds the next sweep.

A routing week, Monday to closeout

The week runs as a sequence of notices and batches, each applied to exactly what it names.

Batches, leave and sweeps that each name their scope

Every input in this room names its scope. A decision batch lists the requests it decides, and Nova applies it to those and leaves the rest alone, even when another request looks like it belongs. The director batch is the clearest case. Requests the sweep escalated the day before have moved to a different approver, so a director's decision on the original chain does not apply to them.

Leave works the same way. HR's coverage notice reroutes requests that are still waiting or escalated on the absent approver to the delegate it names, and requests that approver already decided stay decided. Delegates themselves are applied as of the routing date, so a delegation that starts later in the week does not rewrite the original chain.

What the checks catch

• A delegate applied from a delegation that starts after the routing date, or one that ended before it
• A decision batch applied to a request it does not name
• A request the sweep escalated, picked up by the director batch
• A leave reroute applied to a request that was already approved or rejected
• Closeout counts taken from the thread's history instead of a fresh read of ClickUp

What stays with people

• Every approve or reject decision on a purchase, which belongs to the named approver
• Approving each chain, reroute and escalation before ClickUp changes
• Confirming delegates and coverage, which belongs to HR operations
• Signing the week's closeout

Integrations in this workflow

Kylon is not a procurement suite and it does not replace one. It sits across the request list, the calendars and the approvals mailbox the team already uses, and holds the routing work between them.

• ClickUp
• Google Calendar
• Google Drive
• Outlook
• Slack

• ClickUp holds each purchase request with its chain position, current approver, due time and state, plus the escalation log
• Google Calendar shows approvers' out-of-office blocks and the company holidays that due times skip
• Outlook is the approvals mailbox where decision batches and coverage notices arrive
• Google Drive keeps the routing policy, the delegate table, the sweep notices and the closeout rules
• Slack is where requesters ask where a request stands, and where Ryan posts the weekly summary once the ops lead approves it

Where to start

Route one week of requests. Connect the ClickUp list that holds them and the approvals mailbox in Outlook, and put the routing policy in the room's folder. The rule that goes into the room guidelines: a batch or notice changes only the requests it names, nothing changes in ClickUp until the ops lead approves, and closeout counts come from a fresh read.

Set it up with your agent

Open a new Room, add your agent and paste this prompt. It connects the tools, builds the App with you and asks for your rules one step at a time, and nothing goes out until a person approves it.