Support Temporary Approval Delegation for User Absence

Feature Description

Organizations often have approval workflows where documents require approval from specific users based on their role (e.g., department managers, finance approvers, compliance officers, or other designated approvers).

Currently, if one of these approvers is unavailable due to vacation, sick leave, or other planned absence, approval processes may be delayed until the assigned user returns.

The requested feature is the ability for a user to temporarily delegate their approval/signature permissions to another user for a defined period. During the configured delegation period, approval requests that would normally be assigned to the original approver should automatically be routed to the designated delegate.

This would help organizations maintain uninterrupted approval workflows while preserving a clear audit trail showing both the original approver and the acting delegate.

Use Case

Many business processes rely on sequential approvals from users with specific responsibilities. For example, requests may require approval from a department manager, finance representative, project owner, or another designated role before they can continue.

If one of these approvers is unavailable, the entire workflow may be blocked even though another authorized colleague could handle the approval.

With a temporary delegation feature, an approver could assign a substitute for a specified date range (e.g., during vacation or sick leave). Any approval requests received during that period would automatically be routed to the delegate. Once the delegation expires, all approval requests would automatically be assigned back to the original approver.

This ensures business continuity without requiring workflow modifications or manual reassignment by administrators.

Proposed Solution

Introduce a delegation feature that allows users (or administrators) to configure temporary approval substitutes.

Suggested functionality:

• Select a delegate user.
• Define a start and end date for the delegation.
• Automatically route new approval requests to the delegate during the configured period.
• Automatically restore the original approver after the delegation expires.
• Clearly indicate in the audit log that the approval was performed by a delegate on behalf of the original approver.
• Optionally allow administrators to configure or override delegations when required.

Alternatives (optional)

No response

Additional Context

No response

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