Manager Approvals — Proposed Guide

Planned API — Reference Only

Manager Approvals: Manager routing could use an effective-dated reporting relationship to identify a reviewer. Being a manager does not necessarily confer…

Overview

Manager routing could use an effective-dated reporting relationship to identify a reviewer. Being a manager does not necessarily confer approval authority for every amount or category.

Key concepts

Check the manager relationship, required permissions and conflicts of interest. Resolve the relationship at a documented point in the submission lifecycle.

Implementation considerations

Provide an explicit exception route for an absent or deactivated manager. Do not allow self-approval merely because a relationship is missing.

Illustrative data model

This local fixture shows a possible representation for the concepts above. It is not an endpoint response, production configuration or a claim that the described capability is implemented.

JSON fixture

Fictional concept fixture

{
  "reference_only": true,
  "topic": "Manager Approvals",
  "user_id": "usr_example_123",
  "manager_id": "usr_example_123",
  "approval_id": "apr_example_123",
  "effective_on": "2026-01-15"
}

Design review checklist

Document which organization owns the manager approvals representation and which actor may view or change it.
Test the boundaries of user id, manager id, approval id, effective on using synthetic values, including missing or inconsistent references.
Before future implementation, obtain an approved contract and review failure behavior. This documentation does not authorize production activation.

Proposed data types

Illustrative field dictionary
Name	Type	Description
user_id	string	Stable fictional user reference; not a secret and not evidence that a resource exists.
manager_id	string	Stable fictional manager reference; not a secret and not evidence that a resource exists.
approval_id	string	Stable fictional approval reference; not a secret and not evidence that a resource exists.
effective_on	string (date)	Synthetic calendar date in YYYY-MM-DD form; period inclusivity must be defined by the future contract.

Approval Rules

Approval Workflows

Multi-Level Approvals