How Make Supports Better Approval Workflows

Why approval workflows lose visibility

An approval workflow is a controlled path for reviewing, authorising, rejecting or escalating a request before the next business action takes place. It is not just a notification sequence. It is a decision process with defined inputs, owners, states and outcomes.

Visibility deteriorates when those elements are distributed across disconnected tools. A request may contain important context in an intake form, comments in a chat thread and the final decision in an email. Operations may update a spreadsheet while finance works from an older version. Each person can see part of the process, but no one can reliably see the whole state of the request.

• Requests wait without a clear owner.
• Approvers receive incomplete information.
• Requestors repeatedly ask for status updates.
• Rejected items do not return to a defined rework path.
• Approved decisions are not reflected in downstream systems.
• Reporting relies on manual reconstruction rather than dependable records.

This is why poor approval visibility is usually a systems problem rather than an effort problem. People compensate with follow-up messages and personal reminders, but those workarounds make the process more dependent on individual memory.

What Make adds to an approval workflow

Make is most useful when it coordinates activity across the tools a business already uses. It can connect an intake form or CRM record to an approval route, send relevant information to an approver, monitor the result and update other systems when the decision changes the work.

A typical Make scenario might receive a structured request, evaluate routing conditions, create or update an approval record, notify the responsible person and wait for a defined outcome. From there, it can branch into actions for approval, rejection, escalation, missing information or manual review.

Useful capabilities for approval coordination

• Structured intake: capture the fields required to make a decision before the request enters the queue.
• Conditional routing: send requests to different owners based on amount, department, risk, customer type or request category.
• Consistent notifications: provide the approver with the relevant context and a clear action rather than relying on a forwarded message.
• Reminders and escalation: create defined responses when a decision remains pending beyond an agreed period.
• Status synchronisation: reflect the approval state in the systems used by requestors, operators and downstream teams.
• Exception handling: route missing data, rejected requests, overrides and unusual cases to an explicit path.

Make does not need to become the permanent home for every piece of approval information. Its role can be to move the decision through the right systems while a chosen source of truth records the business state.

Design the decision logic before building the automation

The most important design work happens before a scenario is configured. Start by describing the approval as a sequence of business states rather than a series of tool actions.

1. Submitted: the request has the minimum information needed for review.
2. Under review: a named owner is responsible for making or coordinating the decision.
3. More information required: the request cannot proceed until specific missing data is supplied.
4. Approved: the decision is complete and the authorised next action can begin.
5. Rejected: the request is declined with a recorded reason and any required follow-up.
6. Escalated: the decision has exceeded its time limit or requires a higher level of authority.

These states should have clear entry and exit conditions. For example, an item should not be marked approved merely because an approval message was sent. It should be approved when the authorised decision has been recorded and the required evidence is available.

Next, define the routing rules. A rule should answer who decides, under which condition and what happens if the normal owner is unavailable. Avoid hiding important logic inside informal exceptions. If a discount above a particular threshold needs a second approver, that should be explicit and testable.

Finally, decide where the authoritative record lives. A CRM, project workspace, finance system or dedicated request table may be appropriate depending on the process. Make can synchronise information, but it cannot resolve disagreement about which record is correct.

A practical operating model for approval automation

A useful sequence for designing a Make-supported approval workflow is:

Make can support each step, but the sequence should remain understandable without opening the automation scenario. If only the builder can explain what happens to a request, the operating model is too fragile.

When Make is a good fit

Make is a strong fit when approvals cross multiple applications or require conditional logic. Examples include sales exceptions that update a CRM and finance record, procurement requests that depend on department and budget, or content approvals that need to update a project workspace and notify delivery staff.

It is also useful when the business wants flexibility without adopting a large process management platform. A smaller approval process can often remain close to the tools teams already use, provided its ownership, data and decision rules are clear.

A simpler native approval feature may be preferable when the entire process exists inside one platform, follows a fixed sequence and does not need meaningful downstream synchronisation. Introducing Make in that situation could add another layer without solving a real problem.

What better approval visibility looks like

Better visibility is not the same as adding a dashboard. A dashboard is useful only when the underlying states are accurate and someone knows what decision the information should support.

For an approval process, useful reporting might show the number of pending requests, age by stage, requests awaiting a particular owner, rejection reasons and cases that required escalation. These views help an operations leader decide where a bottleneck needs attention. They are less useful if they only count automation runs or notifications sent.

Consider a hypothetical example. A services team receives requests for non-standard client work. Previously, the request was discussed in chat, approved by a delivery lead and manually added to the project system. A better design would require the requestor to provide scope, estimated effort and commercial context. Make could route low-risk requests to one owner and higher-risk requests to a second reviewer, then update the project workspace only after the final decision is recorded. The improvement is not simply faster messaging. It is a clearer relationship between request, decision, ownership and delivery action.

In another example, a purchasing request may be approved in a finance tool but remain marked as pending in the operational workspace. A synchronised status update can prevent the operations team from chasing a decision that has already been made, while a rejection reason can send the request back for revision instead of ending the process ambiguously.

Common design failures to avoid

Automating activity instead of ownership

A notification sent to a group inbox does not create accountability. Assign a responsible role or person, define the expected response and provide a fallback when the deadline is missed.

Adding approvals without adding control

More checkpoints can make a process slower without making decisions safer. Each approval should exist for a clear reason, such as authority, risk management, quality review or financial control.

Ignoring rejection and rework

A yes path is only one part of the workflow. Rejections need a reason, a destination and a decision about whether the request can be corrected and resubmitted.

Leaving exceptions outside the system

Urgent requests, unavailable approvers and incomplete records should have explicit handling. Otherwise the real process will move back into chat and email whenever the standard path is inconvenient.

Using AI without a defined job

AI may help classify requests, identify missing information or summarise context, but only when its role and review boundary are clear. It should not be introduced as a general solution for an approval process that lacks agreed decision logic.

How to approach implementation

Begin with a small approval path that has a clear owner, measurable delay and a defined downstream action. Map the current process, remove unnecessary steps, agree the business states and identify the system of record. Then build the simplest Make scenario that reliably supports that design.

Test normal requests as well as missing information, rejection, duplicate submission, unavailable approver and delayed response. Confirm that each outcome updates the right systems and that the record remains understandable to someone who was not involved in the build.

For teams working across several tools, Make automation services can support the integration and orchestration layer. Where the approval process is closely tied to work management, a structured workspace such as ClickUp may also need to be designed alongside the automation. The relevant question is not how many scenarios can be built, but whether the resulting system gives the business cleaner data, visible ownership and dependable next actions.

For additional context, the Make projects portfolio shows the types of connected automation and operational systems that can be supported with Make. The specific design should still follow the process, data and governance needs of the business.

The principle to keep

Make can make approval workflows more connected, consistent and visible, but it does not replace operating decisions. The best results come when the business first defines the workflow states, decision rules, ownership and reporting needs.

Once that foundation is clear, Make can remove repetitive coordination between systems and reduce the risk of stale or contradictory information. The result is not merely an automated approval. It is a more reliable way for decisions to move through the business.