An approval step in your workflow: automatic where it can be, you where it must be
Most workflows do not need to be fully automatic. One moment where you look and approve makes them safer and easier to trust. How to build that step in, and how to decide where it belongs.
New to this topic? Start with How to Build Your First Agentic Workflow with dGENIX
The short answer
An approval step is a point in a workflow where GENI stops, shows what it is about to do and waits for your go-ahead. Put it before every action that goes outside or is hard to undo: an email to a customer, an invoice, a social media post, a payment. Everything before it, such as collecting, sorting and drafting, runs automatically. That saves you the most work while keeping the decisions that matter with you.
Why not everything automatically
A fully automatic workflow sounds like the goal. In practice it is often a risk. An AI model can misread a detail, address a customer by the wrong name or take an amount from the wrong line. For an internal summary that is no problem. For an invoice to a customer it is.
An approval step catches those mistakes before they do damage. And it helps you trust the workflow: you see what happens every time, and after a few weeks you know what it is good at. How to decide what an assistant may do on its own is covered in what may an AI agent decide on its own.
Where the step belongs
A simple rule: put an approval step before everything that goes outside or costs money.
| Action | Approval? |
|---|---|
| Reading, sorting, summarising email | No |
| Writing a draft reply | No |
| Sending the reply to a customer | Yes |
| Putting a document in your own folder | No |
| Sending an invoice | Yes |
| Posting on social media | Yes |
| Adding a meeting to your own calendar | Usually no |
| Scheduling a meeting with a customer | Yes |
The work before the step is often most of the work. That is where the time saving is, even if you give the final approval yourself.
How to build it
Step 1: start from a template or your own description
Pick a workflow from the templates or describe what you want. How to start from a template is covered in starting with a workflow template.
Step 2: point out the moment
Say where GENI should stop:
"Every Monday, collect the open invoices older than thirty days, write a friendly reminder per customer, and show me all reminders before anything is sent."
GENI prepares the drafts and waits.
Step 3: approve, adjust or skip
At the approval you see what is about to happen. You approve everything, adjust a draft or skip one. Only then does the workflow continue.
Step 4: after a month, look at what you changed
If you hardly ever change anything, you can consider making the step lighter: approval only for amounts above a threshold, or only for new customers. If you change things often, the instruction is not sharp enough yet, and the approval is exactly where it should be.
An example: social media
A hair salon has GENI create three posts every week: a photo of recent work, a tip and availability for the coming week. The posts are ready on Thursday. The owner checks them in two minutes, sometimes changes a word, and approves them. GENI posts them at the scheduled times.
Without an approval step the owner would have no control over what appears under her name. Without automation she would spend an hour on it every week. With the step in between it takes two minutes and stays hers.
Approving on the go
An approval does not have to wait until you are at your laptop. If you use the Telegram connection, you can also approve from your phone. That way a workflow does not sit still for hours because you are out on a job.
After the approval
Have GENI briefly report what happened after the run: "three reminders sent, one skipped". Then you know the workflow is finished, and you have a trail if a customer asks about it later.
To learn more about workflows in general, read build your first agentic workflow and scheduled tasks explained.
Approval for your reputation
One place where an approval step always belongs: review replies. A reply is public under your name. The Reputation Engine prepares new reviews with a draft reply, and you approve before it is posted. That way you reply quickly, without anything appearing under your name that you have not seen.
The same applies to everything you publish about customers, such as a case study or a post with a photo of a job. A quick check prevents you from sharing something the customer would rather not see public.
A handy rule to start with: everything a customer or the public can see gets an approval step. Everything only you and your team see can run automatically. After a few months you know exactly where you can drop the step.
Start with one workflow
Do not build five workflows with approval steps straight away. Start with one, for example the reminders for open invoices, and run it for a month. Then you know how approving feels, how long it takes and where the drafts can still improve. After that, the second workflow takes minutes.
Frequently asked questions
Does an approval step cost extra credits?
No, waiting costs nothing. You pay for the work GENI does, not for the time it waits for you.
What if I do not respond?
Then nothing happens. The workflow waits until you approve or cancel the task.
Can a colleague approve instead of me?
In a team you can agree who approves which workflow. Discuss that when setting it up.
Where do I start?
dGENIX is in early access. Join the waitlist, or first read workflows for freelancers.
