Step-by-Step: Setting Up Conditional Data Routing for Multi-Departmental HR Approvals in Make.com

Streamlining HR approvals across diverse departments can be a complex endeavor, often bogged down by manual routing and inconsistent workflows. Make.com provides a robust platform to automate and intelligently route approval requests based on specific criteria. This guide will walk you through setting up a sophisticated conditional data routing system within Make.com, ensuring that HR approval requests land in the right hands, every time, leading to enhanced efficiency and compliance for multi-departmental operations.

Step 1: Define Your Approval Logic and Departmental Criteria

Before building in Make.com, clearly outline the rules that dictate which department or individual needs to approve a request. This involves identifying key data points within your HR approval forms (e.g., “Department,” “Request Type,” “Cost Center”) and mapping them to specific approvers or approval groups. For instance, a new hire request for the Marketing department might go to the Marketing Manager and HR, while a software purchase for IT goes to the IT Director and Finance. Document these rules meticulously; this foundational step is crucial for accurate routing and avoiding bottlenecks in your automated workflow. Without a clear understanding of your conditional logic, your Make.com scenario will lack the necessary intelligence.

Step 2: Set Up Your Initial Make.com Scenario and Webhook

Begin by creating a new scenario in Make.com. The entry point for your HR approval data will likely be a “Webhook” module, set to “Custom webhook.” This webhook URL will be the endpoint where your HR forms (e.g., Google Forms, Typeform, internal HRIS) submit their data. Once the webhook is configured, send a sample submission from your form to capture the data structure. This allows Make.com to automatically parse the incoming data fields, which are essential for setting up your conditional filters later. Ensure all relevant data points, like department names, requester IDs, and approval types, are captured.

Step 3: Implement Routers for Departmental Branches

After your initial webhook, connect a “Router” module. The Router is Make.com’s powerful tool for creating multiple distinct paths (branches) from a single input. Each branch emanating from the Router will represent a different approval flow—e.g., one for “Marketing Approvals,” another for “IT Approvals,” and so on. Visually, the Router will fan out, allowing you to build parallel processes. While the Router itself doesn’t filter data, it provides the necessary structure for you to apply filters on each subsequent route, guiding specific data packets down their intended departmental workflows.

Step 4: Configure Filters for Conditional Routing

This is where the “conditional” aspect comes alive. On each path leading out from your Router, add a “Filter” module. Within each filter, you will define the specific conditions that must be met for data to proceed down that particular branch. For example, on the “Marketing Approvals” path, your filter might check if the “Department” field in your incoming data equals “Marketing.” Use “Text operators” like “Equal to” or “Contains” to match your criteria. You can combine multiple conditions using “AND” or “OR” rules to create highly specific routing logic, ensuring that only relevant requests traverse each approval pipeline.

Step 5: Design Department-Specific Approval Workflows

Following each filter, build out the specific approval workflow for that department. This might involve sending email notifications to relevant approvers (e.g., using a “Gmail” or “Outlook 365 Email” module), creating tasks in project management tools (e.g., “Asana,” “Jira”), or updating records in your HRIS (e.g., “Google Sheets,” “Airtable,” or a direct API integration). Ensure each departmental workflow includes steps to capture approval status and potential comments. For instance, after an email approval, you might update a central database to reflect whether the request was approved or rejected, thereby closing the loop efficiently.

Step 6: Test and Refine Your Approval System

Thorough testing is paramount. Run your Make.com scenario with various test cases, simulating requests for each department and ensuring they correctly follow their designated approval paths. Pay close attention to requests that might fall into edge cases or ambiguous categories. Verify that notifications are sent to the correct individuals, and that all data updates occur as expected. Use Make.com’s “Run History” to inspect the flow of data through each module. Based on your testing, iterate on your filters and workflows, refining conditions and optimizing steps to achieve a perfectly robust and reliable HR approval automation system.

If you would like to read more, we recommend this article: The Automated Recruiter’s Edge: Clean Data Workflows with Make Filtering & Mapping