As an administrator, approval rules ensure that the right approver is involved at the right time on Swile Travel. You define when approval is required, according to which criteria, and who must approve.
Approval rules are independent of the travel policy. The travel policy indicates whether a booking complies with your rules; the approval rule indicates whether validation is required, and by whom. A booking that is out of policy therefore does not automatically trigger an approval request.
By default, no trip requires approval
If no approval rule is configured, all bookings go through without validation, including those that are out of policy. Each rule you create adds an extra layer of control on top of this default behaviour.
🧭 Where can I find and create an approval rule on Swile Travel?
Where are the approval rules located on Swile Travel?
In your admin area, go to Policies from the side menu, then open the Approval rules tab on the Travel policies page.
From this tab, you can add, edit or delete an approval rule, and drag and drop the rules to define their priority order.
How do I create an approval rule on Swile Travel?
An approval rule follows a three-step logic: WHEN the rule is triggered, IF certain conditions are met, THEN the relevant approval steps apply.
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Step 1: In the Approval rules tab, click Add an approval rule, then give it a unique and easily identifiable name.
- Step 2: In the WHEN section, choose the event that triggers the rule: All trips, Trips within policy or Trips out of policy.
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Step 3: If you want to restrict the rule to specific cases, enable Define additional conditions. In the IF section, add your conditions using Add a condition: Booking type, Booking amount, a traveller or an analytical field. Conditions can be combined.
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Step 4: In the THEN section, specify the outcome of the rule by choosing No approval needed or Approval request.
- Step 5: If you chose Approval request, designate the approvers for the approval step, then save the rule.
The idea is to keep the system as simple as possible, with only the rules that are necessary.
Here are some typical examples of approval rules:
- by default, no approval is required for all trips within policy
- approval by the manager for all trips out of policy
- no approval is required for all trips taken by members of the executive committee
- approval by the manager's manager's manager for trips exceeding a certain amount
👤 Who approves and how are approvers selected on Swile Travel?
How do I choose the approvers for an approval rule?
In the Step 1 – Any of these approvers section, you designate the people authorised to approve. Three criteria are available:
- Role: the approver assigned to the employee, their direct manager or their manager's manager.
- User: a specific named person.
- Analytical field: a group of people, such as the finance team designated by an analytical field associated with the members of that group.
You can also click Add an alternative approver to provide a backup approver. Only one of the approvers for the step needs to approve the booking for it to be approved.
What happens when several people can approve a request?
When you define several approvers in the rule or target users via an analytical field, all targeted people will be notified and can approve the request; approval from just one person is sufficient.
Can approvers change from one booking to another?
Yes, this is possible depending on the approval rules you have defined.
On Swile Travel, approvers can be dynamic: they are not necessarily fixed as a single approver assigned to the employee. If you target an analytical field in your approval rule, the approver is determined when the booking request is made, based on the value selected by the traveller.
Example: an employee chooses a project code when making their booking. If an approval rule associates this project code with a specific approver (e.g. the project director), the approval request is automatically directed to that person.
You can also keep things simple by designating the approver assigned to the employee.
What happens if the approver is not yet on Swile Travel?
An approver is considered unreachable when Swile Travel is unable to contact them, for example because they have not been invited or have not completed their onboarding. In this case, the approval request is redirected to their manager. If no manager is configured, the request is sent to the organisation's administrators.
🔢 How do I manage the priority and tracking of approvals on Swile Travel?
What happens if a booking matches several approval rules?
When a booking matches several rules, only the approvers for the first matching rule need to approve it. Drag and drop the rules in the Approval rules tab to adjust this order.
💡 Tip: build your rules from general to specific
Start with a broad approval rule that covers your main requirement, for example having all out-of-policy trips approved by the assigned approver. Add more specific rules above it for cases requiring greater control, such as specific teams or trips exceeding a certain amount.
How can I find out which approval was applied to a booking?
In the Bookings tab of the menu dedicated to trips, open the details of a booking. On the page, a summary provides a record of what happened during the booking, for each programme: train, accommodation, flight and car.
This summary shows:
- the travel policy applied to each traveller;
- the reasons why the booking is out of policy, where applicable;
- the approval steps and the person who approved it.
This summary is a fixed snapshot. Even if your policies or approval rules change afterwards, it retains the exact state of the approval process at the time of booking. The approver also receives a summary of the reasons for the out-of-policy status when deciding whether to approve.
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