Approval in Zoho Forms is configured in the form settings under the Approvals tab. You define one or more approval stages, assigning each stage to a specific user, a role, or a field value on the form (for example, routing to the department head named in a dropdown). The designated approver receives an email notification with the response details and approve or reject buttons. On a decision, the submitter is notified and any configured integrations or webhooks are triggered only on approval.
Use Approvals for any form where a submission should not automatically proceed to the next step without human review. Common cases include purchase requests, leave applications, vendor onboarding, and creative asset requests. Multi-stage approvals are appropriate where different reviewers handle different aspects, such as a manager approving the business case and a finance officer approving the budget. Avoid Approvals for high-volume transactional forms where every submission is valid by definition.
Approval workflows in Zoho Forms support sequential multi-stage approval. Approvers can add comments when approving or rejecting, which are visible in the response detail. If an approver is unavailable, you can configure a delegation or a backup approver, but this must be set up in advance. Integrations such as Zoho CRM record creation or email notifications can be set to trigger only on approved responses, ensuring downstream systems receive only validated data.
Yes. Zoho Forms supports field-based routing in Approvals, where the approver assigned to a stage is determined by the value in a specific form field, such as a dropdown of department names. This allows a single form to serve multiple departments while routing each submission to the correct reviewer without manual intervention after setup.
A rejected response remains in the Zoho Forms response list with a status of Rejected. The submitter receives a notification email that includes any comments the approver added. The response is not deleted. You can configure a re-submission option to allow the respondent to revise and resubmit, though this requires additional workflow configuration.
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