An AI out-of-office approver reassignment agent watches for approvers who are absent, using calendar status, leave notices or an out-of-office reply, and lists the approvals waiting on them.
Notices an approver is out of office.
Approvals waiting on that approver.
Checks the delegation rules for a valid stand-in.
Confirms the delegate may approve this amount.
The stand-in reviews and approves or rejects.
Returns items to the approver on their return date.
It looks up your delegation rules to find who may cover each request by amount, category and entity, and rejects any delegate whose authority is too low.
It proposes the reroute with a reason, applies it where your policy allows automatic cover, and returns the approval to the original approver when they are back.
Approvals pause quietly when an approver is away. Requesters chase, work stalls, and the usual workaround of forwarding the link or approving in someone's name breaks the control.
The workflow does not know the approver is on leave until someone complains.
A colleague may cover small items but not large ones, and that is easy to forget.
People fall back on using the absent approver's access, which defeats the audit trail.
Weeks of leave can turn a simple purchase into a missed deadline.
Temporary cover is never reversed, leaving the wrong person with standing authority.
The agent reads approver availability from the sources you connect and notes the start and end dates.
It lists pending and soon-to-arrive approvals assigned to that approver, ordered by age and deadline.
For each request it looks up the delegation rule and picks a named delegate whose limit covers the amount and category.
It reassigns or proposes reassigning the approval, stamps the reason in the record and tells both the delegate and the requester.
When the absence ends the agent returns open items to the original approver and closes the temporary cover.
Bring a small sample and watch Flo work through it.
| Aspect | By hand | With the agent |
|---|---|---|
| Spotting the gap | Requests sit until the requester asks why nothing happened. | The agent notices pending items on absent approvers and acts the same day. |
| Choosing a stand-in | Requesters guess who can cover and ask around. | A named delegate from the rule set is selected automatically. |
| Authority limits | Delegates sometimes approve amounts above their authority. | Delegate limits are checked before any reassignment. |
| Return handling | Reassigned items are forgotten when the approver returns. | Routing reverts on the return date and open items are listed. |
| Visibility | Requesters do not know the approver is away. | Requesters are told who now holds the request and why. |
| If | Then | Who decides |
|---|---|---|
| Approver calendar shows full-day absence and items are pending | Offer the item to the configured delegate | Delegate approver |
| Delegate authority is below the amount | Skip to the next delegate in the chain or escalate to the approver's manager | Approver's manager |
| The delegate is the requester | Refuse the reassignment and pick another route to avoid self-approval | Procurement lead |
| No delegate is configured | Notify the approver's manager and procurement operations | Approver's manager |
| Approver returns earlier than planned | Move open items back after confirming with the approver | Approver |
| Absence is open-ended with no return date | Ask the manager to name a longer-term delegate | HR business partner |
The agent can send a prompt to the approver before reassigning if your rule allows a short wait. The approver chooses whether to keep or hand over the item.
The agent moves down the delegation chain and records each hop. If the chain is exhausted, a person is asked to name a cover.
The agent flags that a partial review exists and shows the notes. The delegate decides whether to start again.
Some approvals may not be delegated at all. The agent routes these to the named escalation person and tells the requester.
Talk it through with the team. We will map it to your steps and show where a person stays in control.
List current approvers, their stand-ins and the limits each can approve.
Have the agent warn requesters and managers about stuck items without moving any.
Allow moves for low and middle amounts where a valid delegate exists, with logging.
Add higher-value or sensitive categories only after the delegation rules have been reviewed.
A rising share means delegation is not working. Read it with the reroute count to see whether items are moving.
Quick answers to what people ask most about out-of-office approver reassignment.
Book a demoIt is temporarily moving approval tasks from someone who is away to a person authorised to decide in their place. The aim is to keep requests moving without breaking approval limits or the audit trail.
No. It chooses only from the delegates and limits you define. If nobody qualifies it stops and asks a person rather than guessing.
The agent can return open items to the original approver as soon as their status changes, while decisions already made by the delegate stay on record.
No. Delegation gives a named colleague their own authority on specific items, with a record of who decided. Sharing a login hides the real approver and is a control failure.
An approval audit trail is the dated record of who requested, reviewed and approved a purchase, with the information they saw at the time.
→An approval policy exception is a documented decision to allow a purchase that breaks a rule, such as a non-preferred vendor or a missing quote.
→Expedited approval is the fast-track route that lets an urgent purchase skip the normal queue while still meeting policy.
→Contract request intake is the first step of contracting: capturing what agreement is needed, with whom and on what terms.
→Bring a small sample of real items. We will show what Flo handles on its own and where it hands over to your team.
