Conditional approval steps help you simplify approval management

Approvals in Ashby now support conditional logic in your approval steps.

When managing approval processes you may end up with approvals that are largely the same except for a few additional reviewers - Finance sign-off for out-of-band compensation, VP approval for senior-level openings, legal review for specific locations.

Conditional approval steps let you define when each step applies, so you can consolidate near-duplicate chains making approvals easier to maintain and update over time.

Setting conditions in a step

• Always include (the default, same behavior as today)
• Include only when conditions match

When you set a conditional in a step, you're able to define your criteria using filters. Conditions can compare against static values or against other fields (see more on field comparison filters).

For example, you can trigger a step when an offer's salary exceeds the opening's compensation range.

Or, you can pull in a People/Legal team member in cases where Visa Sponsorship is needed.

Visibility when submitting approvals

When someone submits an approval request (e.g. on an offer), they can see which conditional steps will be triggered and which will be skipped.

Hovering over a step shows the conditions, so it's clear why certain steps are required.

You can also easily see which steps were skipped.

Custom step display names

Every approval step can now have a custom display name, making it clear what each step represents when someone is reviewing or waiting on an approval.

You might label a step "Finance Review" or "VP Approval" instead of relying on the approver's name alone.

Works across all approval types

Conditional approval steps are supported for Offer, Job, and Opening approvals. The available fields in the condition builder adjust based on the approval type, so you're always working with relevant data.

Instead of maintaining multiple approval chains that are mostly identical aside from one or two steps, you can consolidate into fewer chains that are easier to maintain and adjust over time.

Getting Started

Conditional approval steps are available for Plus and Enterprise customers. Head to your Approvals settings to start adding conditions to individual steps. You can also learn more about conditional approval steps in our knowledge base.