Setting up document approval through Bitrix24 business processes

Setting Up Document Approval via Business Processes in Bitrix24

A contract is uploaded to the disk, someone messages the manager in chat, who forwards it to the lawyer, who sends feedback by email. The approval chain gets lost, document versions get mixed up. Bitrix24 business processes replace this unstructured back-and-forth with a formalized route.

How the Approval Process Is Structured

Approval in Bitrix24 is implemented through the "User Task" action (CBPUserTypeActivity) in the BP editor. This is the key element: the process stops, the approver receives a notification in the activity feed with action buttons (Approve / Reject / Send Back for Revision).

A complete history is stored: who approved, when, with what comments. Data is written to b_bizproc_workflow_log and b_bizproc_task.

Approval Routes

Sequential approval — one after another. Lawyer → CFO → CEO. Each subsequent person receives a task only after the previous one completes.

Implementation: three "User Task" blocks in sequence, with conditions after each. If someone rejects — a "Rejected" branch with a notification to the initiator.

Parallel approval — all at once. All approvers receive tasks simultaneously, the process waits for all responses. Used for formal sign-offs where order doesn't matter.

Implementation: a "Parallel Actions" block, with a "User Task" inside each branch.

Conditional approval — the route depends on document parameters. Contract up to 100,000 — only the department head; above that — the CFO is added; above 1M — the CEO as well.

Voting Types

The "User Task" block has a configurable voting type:

• Unanimous — everyone must approve
• Majority — more than 50% of "yes" votes is sufficient
• First to vote — as soon as one person clicks, the result is recorded

This affects behavior during parallel approval: with "majority" the process doesn't wait for all approvers to respond.

Binding to Disk Documents

Files for approval are uploaded to the disk module. A business process is bound to a folder or file: Disk → [Folder] → Settings → Business Processes.

When a BP is launched for a file, the user task displays a link to the file with a preview option. Approval comments are attached to the file's history.

File versioning during approval: uploading a new version via Disk → [File] → Upload New Version creates a new version without losing the old one. Version history is tied to records in b_disk_version.

Notifications and Reminders

The approver receives a notification in the Bitrix24 activity feed and by email (if notification rules are configured). A reminder for an unanswered task is sent via a "Wait" block followed by re-sending the notification.

Standard scheme: wait 24 hours → send reminder → wait another 24 hours → escalate to a higher-level manager.

Setup Time

Setting up a standard contract approval process with three approval levels — 1 working day including documentation and administrator training.