Approvers and Escalation Approvers

Approvers review a verification before HYPR Affirm issues its outcome. This page shows administrators how to assign them in the workflow editor. The Approvers section of the editor's left sidebar has two items: Primary Approvers opens the Approver Assignment card, and Escalation Approvers opens the Escalation Approver Assignment card. On either card, you add, edit and reorder approvers in place.

Both cards use the same chain configuration. They differ in when Affirm invokes the chain: the primary chain on every verification, the escalation chain only on escalation.

Approver Assignment

Send requests to approvers from your integration's defined hierarchy, to custom email entries or to a combination of several approvers, each with its own time limit.

If you use the Affirm API to create verification flows and user instances, you can supply approvers dynamically for each user instance. For details, see the HYPR Affirm API.

The following rules govern which approvers a chain can hold:

• When Approver Chat and Video or Attestation is on, the chain needs at least one human approver and cannot include HYPR (automated approval).
• When both are off, the only approver is HYPR (automated approval). A new flow starts this way.
• Manager can appear once in a chain, and a Dynamic approver cannot be combined with other approvers.
• Manager needs an assigned application, or a User Directory customization, to look up the requester's manager.

Affirm invites each approver by email, and also by SMS when the approver has a phone number: the number on an Other entry, or for Manager the manager's mobile number in the directory.

To add an approver:

1. In the flow editor's left sidebar, under Approvers, click Primary Approvers. The Approver Assignment card lists the Assigned Approvers in order of first contact.

   

2. Click Add Approver. The list of approver types opens.

3. Select the approver type for the new assignment from the following options:

   
   • Manager: HYPR Affirm uses the IdP Manager assignment to determine the approver
   • Other: a custom email address that you enter, with an optional phone number (in + international format) and country for SMS invitations
   • Dynamic: the Affirm API supplies the approver for each verification when the flow is initialized. Use it when the approver depends on the requester's context, for example department, ticket assignee or on-call rotation
   • HYPR (automated approval): HYPR Affirm approves or denies the requester automatically, and approves only when every step in the flow passed, including custom steps. Available only when Approver Chat and Video and Attestation are both off

4. For an Other approver, enter the Email and, optionally, the Phone Number and Country.

5. Leave the Timeout at 0 min. A new assignment starts as the final approver in the chain, so its timeout is greyed out at 0 min.

   
   • The timeout is how long Affirm waits for this approver before it invites the next one. An approver that is not last in the chain takes 1 min, 2 min, 3 min or 5 min. To set it, move the approver up the chain and edit the approver
   • HYPR (automated approval) is always the only approver in its chain, so its Timeout stays at 0 min

6. Click Add. The approver appears under Assigned Approvers.

7. Click Save at the top right of the flow editor.

Multiple Approvers

You can assign up to five approvers for a given flow. When the assigned timeout lapses, Affirm revokes the current approver's invitation and invites the next approver.

How long the requester waits depends on the step. For Attestation, the requester waits up to 10 minutes for a decision, however long the chain is. For Approver Chat and Video, the requester waits for an approver to join for the sum of the chain's timeouts plus 5 minutes.

Managing Approvers

Click the three lines to the left of a listed approver to open the following options:

• Edit Approver: opens the approver's fields on the card, where you change the email address, phone number and country of Other entries and the Timeout of any entry that is not last in the chain. Click Save when you finish editing the approver

• Delete Approver: removes the approver from the list immediately

• Move to Top/Bottom; Move up/down one position: orders the approver chain

  Timeout

  Approvers begin in the final position in the chain with a default Timeout of 0 min. When multiple approvers are assigned and an approver moves from the final position to any other position, its Timeout resets to 5 min. To use a different value, edit the approver, set the timeout and click Save.

  Moving any approver to the final position in the chain resets its Timeout to 0 min.

Escalation Approver Assignment

Prerequisite Step

The Escalate to Live Chat verification step must be on to use escalation approvers. Turning it on adds Manager as the first escalation approver, and the flow needs at least one escalation approver while it is on.

In the flow editor's left sidebar, under Approvers, click Escalation Approvers. The Escalation Approver Assignment card works like Approver Assignment, with one difference: HYPR (automated approval) is not available for escalation. The escalation chain handles cases that require human review, so it has no automated approval option.

When Escalate to Live Chat is off, the section shows the prerequisite reminder, To use this configuration, you should have the Escalate to Live Chat step selected.

After at least one escalation approver is assigned, the section shows the active chain.

For escalation, the Add Approver list offers only Manager, Dynamic and Other.

Save and Revert

When you finish configuring approvers, click Save at the top right of the flow editor. To discard all unsaved changes, click Revert Changes next to it.

Related

• Create and Manage Verification Flows: workflow creation, applications, retry limits
• Configure Verification Steps: individual verification steps including Escalate to Live Chat
• Injectable Outcomes & Retry Limits: per-step retry and outcome configuration
• Attestation: what the approver sees and how long the requester waits