Most approval processes live in a spreadsheet and an email chain until somebody replaces them properly. This is what “properly” looks like, running in your browser.
What this is showing
Three things that any real approval system has to get right, and that a spreadsheet cannot.
- A rule that routes. The claim goes to finance only when it exceeds the claimant’s limit. Nobody decides that each time; the system knows.
- Every branch has a consequence. Approve, return, and reject all do something visible and all notify the right person. Try each one.
- Returning is not starting again. A returned claim comes back into the same chain with its history intact, rather than becoming a second claim nobody can reconcile.
Being straight about it
The data is invented, the people are not real, and there is no server behind this: everything runs in your browser and disappears when you reload.
What is real is the pattern. This is the same shape as approval systems built professionally on Power Platform, rebuilt from scratch here so it can be shown without exposing anybody’s actual system or data.
A build like this for a real business is not a week of work either. Most of the effort is in the questions beforehand: who approves what, what happens when they are on leave, what counts as an exception. The software is the easy part.
Recognise this?
If you have a process running on a spreadsheet and goodwill, describe it below and you will get an honest view on whether it is worth replacing, including when the answer is that it is not.