Chain approvals in GLPI have always been a bottleneck – the native system offers only one validation round, without automatic chaining of approvers.
The problem
In corporate environments, it's common for ticket approval to involve multiple hierarchical levels: the immediate manager approves, then finance, then the board. Native GLPI does not support this chaining natively. Teams end up resolving this with emails outside the system, breaking traceability and creating audit gaps. Additionally, there is no automatic control over what should happen when an approval is rejected – solving, closing, or escalating to the next level must be done manually.
How Approval Flow works
The NexTool Approval Flow module adds to GLPI the ability to define multi-level approval flows linked to ITIL ticket categories. Each category can have one active flow with as many levels as needed, using GLPI's native approval templates (ITILValidationTemplate).
- Flows per ITIL category – each category can have exactly one approval flow, avoiding ambiguity about which rule applies.
- Chained levels – levels are organized in a tree with independent paths for approval and rejection, allowing distinct rules for each outcome.
- Configurable actions – upon approval or rejection, you define what happens: do nothing, solve, close, or advance to the next approval level.
- Automatic solution – when the action is "Solve" or "Close", a solution template (SolutionTemplate) must be linked, ensuring message consistency for the requester.
- Automatic hooks – when a ticket is created in a category with an active flow, the first-level validation is triggered automatically without manual intervention.
- User and group support – approvers can be configured as individual users or groups, using GLPI's native validation templates.
How to activate
- Install NexTool on your GLPI 11
- Go to Setup > NexTool > Modules
- Activate Approval Flow and click Configure
- In the Flows tab, create a new flow associated with the desired category
- Define the approval levels and actions for each outcome
Who is it for
Approval Flow is ideal for organizations that need formal governance in IT processes – access requests, acquisitions, infrastructure changes, and any other ticket type that requires hierarchical approval. It is especially useful for teams that work with ITIL and need complete traceability of the approval process within GLPI itself, without depending on external tools.
Compatibility
- GLPI: 10.0+ and 11.0+
- Plan: PAID
- Plugin: NexTool 3.x+
Next step
Approval Flow is part of NexTool, an ecosystem of modules to expand GLPI without code customizations. Contact the team for a demonstration.
This content was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by the Nextool Solutions team. Screenshots are from the real GLPI environment with the NexTool plugin.
