Internal approval routing
Purchase, vendor and content requests move into routed approval workflows.
Case note
The implementation was treated as a small operating system: visibility first, ownership next, automation only after the workflow was clear.
The starting point
Internal approvals were spread across inbox and chat. Requesters kept asking for status because no one could see where work was stuck.
The important signal was not that the team was working badly. The issue was that work depended on memory, copied data, parallel system checks and priority decisions without a shared source of truth. The first value was turning invisible work into a visible workflow.
The implementation
Ductio created a single intake form with routing rules, owner assignment, reminders and requester updates.
The scope stayed deliberately small. Rules cover repeatable work, AI summarizes or classifies where free text adds context, and sensitive decisions remain in human review. AI as support inside the process, not as autopilot.
What was used
Tooling was chosen from the process outward, not from a pre-decided technical preference. Each piece needed a clear owner, a stable integration path and a simple way to inspect errors.
In practice, the build combined Tally/Typeform, Airtable, Slack/Teams, Make, Email. The tools visible to the team stayed close to their daily work, while integration logic was documented and kept separate from sensitive commercial decisions.
The improvement showed up in daily work.
Rather than treating the result as a dashboard, the team felt it in three specific moments: less manual preparation, less context hunting, and fewer doubts about who needed to act.
Status checks: Requester follow-up messages moved from Frequent to Half.
Owner clarity: Requests with assigned approver moved from Low to High.
Overdue visibility: Aging requests tracked moved from Hidden to Visible.
What changed after launch
Approval ownership became visible without forcing the company into a heavy system. The workflow stayed simple but created a reliable operating habit.
The most valuable change was operational calm. The team stopped chasing fragments and started working from a shared sequence: intake, context, decision, action and evidence. 50% fewer status checks
The workflow in one line
How it was built
A form submission triggers rule-based routing, creates the approval task, sends notifications, monitors due dates and writes final decisions back to the request log.
The stack was pragmatic: Tally/Typeform, Airtable, Slack/Teams, Make, Email. Tools were chosen for ownership, integration and maintainability, not for theater. The result is a system the team can understand and operate.
What was delivered
- Request form
- Approval rules
- Owner reminders
- Requester updates
- Request ownership became visible to approvers and requesters.
- Repeated status-check messages dropped by about half.
- Overdue requests were visible before they became blockers.
