Some things need a person.
Build that in.
An approval step pauses a flow until someone approves: publishing agendas, releasing payments, posting to the public site. It holds record IDs only and reads the records again on approval.
How approvals works
- 01ReadThe flow gathers the records
- 02PauseIDs are held; the assigned person is told
- 03DecideApprove or reject in SentraBridge
- 04Re-readRecords are read fresh from the source
- 05WriteOnly then is anything sent
Automation with a checkpoint.
Most flows should run on their own. Some shouldn't: a payment batch, an agenda going to the website, a bulk status change. The approval step stops the flow at that point and waits for a named person.
- Approvers are people in the workspace, asked by email
- Approve or reject, with the decision logged
- Requests expire after a set time (72 hours by default)
| flow | holds | assigned to | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Publish agendas to the website | 3 meetings | City Clerk | Approve · Reject |
| Release refund batch | 12 records | Finance admin | Approve · Reject |
| Post road closure alert | 1 record | Communications | Approved 9:02 |
Waiting without keeping a copy.
A paused flow holds the record IDs, not the records. When someone approves, SentraBridge reads the records again from the source, so what's written is current and nothing sat in storage while it waited.
- No record contents stored while waiting
- Changes made in the meantime are picked up
- The activity log shows who approved what
See it in real flows.
Publish agendas on the website after the clerk approves
Every morning, finds upcoming meetings with a published agenda in CivicCA and asks the city clerk to approve them. Approved agendas become pages on…
CivicCA → Sentra CMSPublish upcoming CivicCA meetings to the website
Every night at 1 am, takes upcoming meetings with a published agenda from CivicCA and adds them as pages on the Sentra CMS website.
Questions, answered
What's stored while a flow waits?
Only the record IDs, the flow and step, and who it's assigned to. On approval the records are read again from the source.
Who can approve?
The people you list as approvers on the step: members of that client's workspace, asked by email. A request expires if nobody answers in time.
See your own systems connected.
We'll set up a workspace with your systems in a sandbox and build your first flow with you.