What is Escalation?
Escalation automatically notifies a manager or a different role when a document remains pending beyond a configured number of days — even after normal reminders have been sent to the original approver. This ensures approvals never go completely unnoticed.
Enabling Escalation on a Rule
- Open the Approval Reminder Rule
- Enable the Enable Escalation checkbox
- The Escalation Steps child table becomes visible
- Add one or more escalation steps
Escalation Step Fields
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| After Days Pending | Required. The engine fires this step when the document has been pending for at least this many days. |
| Escalation Level | Auto-populated sequence number. Used in the Reminder Log to identify which escalation step fired. |
| Escalate To User | A specific Frappe user who receives the escalation notification. |
| Escalate To Role | A Frappe role — all users with this role receive the escalation notification. |
You can set either Escalate To User or Escalate To Role (or both) on each step. Steps are evaluated in ascending order of After Days Pending.
Example: Two-Level Escalation
For a Purchase Order rule:
| Step | After Days Pending | Escalate To |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | Role: Purchase Manager |
| 2 | 10 | User: CFO ([email protected]) |
- Days 1–4: Normal reminders to the original approver
- Day 5+: Purchase Manager also receives notifications
- Day 10+: CFO is additionally notified
How Escalation is Logged
Each escalation notification creates a Reminder Log entry with the Escalation Level field set to the step number. This lets you filter the Reminder Activity report to see only escalated documents.