Approval Policies

Approval policies let your organisation add an internal sign-off step before orders reach the Omnixi team. This is useful for controlling spend and ensuring the right people review changes before they’re actioned.

Note

Only admin contacts can create and manage approval policies. The policies apply to all portal users in your organisation.

Why use approval policies?

Without approval policies, any admin or manager contact can submit orders directly. For many organisations that’s fine — but larger teams may want guardrails. Common scenarios:

• Orders above a certain monthly cost need finance sign-off
• Cease requests need a department head’s approval
• Bulk hardware orders need IT review

Approval policies automate this. Instead of relying on people to remember to check with the right person, the system enforces it.

How approval works

Here’s the flow when a policy is triggered:

1. A portal user submits an order through the order wizard
2. The system checks the order against all active approval policies
3. If any policy matches, the order is placed in the awaiting approval queue instead of going straight to the Omnixi team
4. Designated approvers receive a notification and see the order in their Pending Approvals dashboard widget
5. An approver reviews the order and either approves or rejects it
6. If approved, the order proceeds to the Omnixi team for processing
7. If rejected, the order is returned to the requester with a reason

The Omnixi team only sees orders that have cleared any required approvals. This means your internal governance happens before any external action is taken.

Setting up policies

Go to Settings → Approval Policies to manage your policies.

Creating a policy

Click Add Policy and configure the following:

Field	Description
Policy name	A human-readable label (e.g. “Finance approval for high-value orders”)
Trigger condition	The rule that determines when this policy applies
Threshold value	The value that triggers the policy
Approver(s)	Which contacts must approve — defaults to all admin contacts

Trigger conditions

You can set policies based on different criteria:

Condition	What it checks	Example
Estimated monthly cost exceeds	The estimated recurring cost of the order	Orders over £50/month need approval
Order type is	The type of order being placed	All cease requests need approval
Quantity exceeds	The number of items in the order	Orders with more than 10 lines need approval

When multiple policies are active, the system checks them all. If any policy matches, the order requires approval. Policies are evaluated independently — an order that triggers multiple policies still only needs one approval to proceed.

Choosing approvers

By default, all admin contacts can approve orders. You can narrow this to specific contacts if you prefer — for example, routing high-cost orders to your finance lead specifically.

Tip

Keep your approver list current. If an approver leaves the organisation or changes role, update your policies so orders don’t get stuck waiting for someone who can no longer act on them.

Approving and rejecting orders

Finding orders that need approval

Approvers can find pending orders in two places:

• Pending Approvals widget on the dashboard — shows a count of orders waiting for your review
• Orders list — filter by the “Awaiting approval” status to see all pending orders

Reviewing an order

Open the order detail page to see the full request:

• What’s being ordered (type, items, quantities)
• Who placed the order and when
• Any notes the requester added
• Which policy triggered the approval requirement

Taking action

From the order detail page, you can:

• Approve — the order moves forward to the Omnixi team for processing
• Reject — the order is returned to the requester. You’ll be asked to provide a reason, which the requester will see in their order timeline

Caution

Rejected orders cannot be resubmitted. The requester will need to create a new order if they want to try again, potentially with modifications that address the rejection reason.

For order requesters

If you submit an order that triggers an approval policy:

1. You’ll see a confirmation that your order is awaiting approval
2. The order appears in your order list with an “Awaiting approval” status
3. Once your approver acts, you’ll receive a notification
4. If approved, the order proceeds normally — you can track it like any other order
5. If rejected, you’ll see the reason in the order timeline

You don’t need to do anything while waiting — the approval notification goes to the right people automatically.

Tip

If an order has been awaiting approval for a while, check with your approver directly. Approval policies can’t set deadlines, so time-sensitive requests may need a nudge.

Managing policies

Editing a policy

Go to Settings → Approval Policies, find the policy, and update the fields. Changes apply to new orders immediately — orders already in the approval queue are not affected.

Removing a policy

Delete a policy from the same settings page. Once removed, new orders that would have matched that policy will go straight to the Omnixi team without requiring approval. Orders already awaiting approval under the old policy still need to be approved or rejected.

Best practices

• Start simple — begin with one or two high-impact policies (e.g. cost threshold and cease requests) rather than trying to cover every scenario
• Set sensible thresholds — if the threshold is too low, approvers get overwhelmed with routine requests. If too high, the policy rarely triggers and provides little value
• Review periodically — as your organisation’s needs change, revisit your policies. A threshold set 12 months ago may no longer be appropriate
• Communicate policies to your team — make sure order requesters know that approval policies exist and what triggers them, so they aren’t surprised when an order doesn’t go straight through

Common questions

Can I have multiple approval policies active at once? Yes. All active policies are checked against every order. If any policy matches, the order requires approval.

What happens if an approver is unavailable? If you’ve assigned specific approvers and they’re all unavailable, orders will sit in the queue until someone acts. Consider assigning multiple approvers or keeping the default (all admin contacts) so there’s always someone who can approve.

Do approval policies apply to broadband requests? Yes. Broadband requests are submitted as orders and are subject to the same approval policies as any other order type.

Can standard users trigger approval policies? Standard users can’t place orders, so approval policies don’t apply to them. Only admin and manager contacts can submit orders.

Are quick actions from My Services also subject to approval? Yes. Quick actions (like Change Tariff or Request SIM Swap) create orders through the same process, so they follow the same approval rules.