In this article you will learn more about essentry's Approval Flows feature. You will learn: what it is, how to configure it, and how to use it to optimize and secure your check-in process.
What are Approval Flows?
Approval Flows allow you to manage access approvals directly in the essentry dashboard. They make access requests structured, traceable, and compliant — ensuring that only the right people can grant access to designated secure areas.
Important: A guest can only check in when all matching Approval Flows have been approved. If any flow is still pending or has been denied, check-in is blocked automatically. If no Approval Flows apply to a visit, the guest can check in as normal.
You can access the Approval Flows section by clicking on Company > Approval Flows in the sidebar.
Stucture of the Approval Flow
Each Approval Flow consists of the following parts:
Basic Settings
- Name (required): A descriptive name for the flow, displayed to approvers when reviewing requests.
- Description (optional): Provides additional context for approvers about what they are approving and why.
- Active / Inactive: Controls whether the flow creates new approval requests. Existing approvals are preserved when a flow is deactivated.
Triggers
Triggers determine when an Approval Flow applies. Each flow has exactly one trigger type. There are three trigger types available:
- Access Profile — The flow applies when a visit or invitation includes any of the selected access profiles.
- Appointment Creator / Host — The flow applies when the visit's host or creator is one of the specified employees. Only employees with the "can host" permission can be selected.
- Custom Field — The flow applies when a visit's or invitation's custom field values match the configured values. Multiple values can be specified for the same field.
If you need multiple trigger conditions, create separate Approval Flows for each (see "Multiple Approval Flows" below).
Approvers
These are the team members who will be responsible for approving or denying access, usually supervisors or security managers. You can assign one or more approvers per flow, and this can be customized on a per-flow basis.
First-come-first-serve: Within a single flow, only one approver needs to act. The first approver to approve or deny resolves the flow for that guest, and any remaining pending approvers in the same flow are automatically set to "Expired." This is expected behavior, not an error.
Notifications
Approvers receive an email notification when a new pending approval request is created. The email includes: the guest's name, guest company, host name and email, event start and end times, and a direct link to the approval request.
The dashboard also updates in real time when approval states change, and the pending approval count badge in the sidebar refreshes automatically.
Create a new Approval Flow
The above image (GIF) shows the Approval Flow first from a general perspective, then specifically adding in a Custom Field as a Trigger
- Click the +New Approval Flow button on the top right hand side.
- Type in the New Approval Flow's name.
- Select the Triggers for the Approval Flow.
- Select the Approvers.
- Choose from the Notification options.
- Click Create
Congratulations, you've successfully created your first Approval Flow.
Approval Statuses
When Approval Flows apply to a visit, the following statuses may appear on the visit detail and reception views:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Awaiting Approval | All matching flows are still pending. Check-in is blocked. |
| Under Review | Multiple flows match and they are in different states — some resolved, others still pending. Check-in is blocked. |
| Partially Approved | At least one flow was approved and at least one was denied. Check-in is blocked. |
| Approval Granted | All matching flows have been approved. The guest can check in. |
| Approval Denied | At least one flow was denied. Check-in is blocked. |
If no Approval Flows match a visit, no status indicator is shown and the guest can check in normally.
Multiple Approval Flows
When a visit matches more than one active Approval Flow, all matching flows apply simultaneously. Each flow is evaluated independently through its own set of approvers. The overall status is determined by combining the results across all flows, the guest can only check in once every matching flow has been approved.
If the same employee is an approver on multiple flows, they must respond to each flow separately.
Draft Appointments
If an appointment is still in draft, the system calculates which flows match and shows the status as "Approval Required." However, no notification emails are sent to approvers until the appointment is published. Once published, the status changes to "Awaiting Approval" and approvers are notified.
Approver Management
- Approver added to a flow: They receive approval requests and email notifications for all currently matching future visits with pending approvals.
- Approver removed from a flow: Their pending requests are deleted. If they had already approved or denied, their decision is archived internally but hidden from the active flow view.
- Previously removed approver re-added: Their archived decisions are restored to their original status.
Good to Know
- Changes to event times or guest contact details (such as name) after an Approval Flow has already been evaluated do not trigger a re-evaluation. The original approval decision stands. If a significant change requires re-evaluation, the flow would need to be manually adjusted (e.g. by toggling it inactive and active again).
- Deleting an Approval Flow permanently removes all related approval records. This is irreversible. If no other flows match the affected visits, their status changes to "Not Required."
- Deactivating a flow preserves existing approval records but stops the flow from creating new requests for future visits.
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