Human in the Loop: Add Manual Approval to Automation

Human in the Loop in Bit Flows is a feature that pauses a running workflow and sends an approval request to a reviewer. The workflow continues only after the reviewer approves or rejects the request.

In short, it lets you bring human decision-making into your automation when needed.

This is especially useful at critical points, such as approving vendor requests, reviewing form submissions, or verifying data before sending it to another system. In this guide, you’ll learn how to set up Human in the Loop in Bit Flows step by step.

Add Human in the Loop to a Workflow

Before creating this workflow, make sure you have:

• Make sure your SMTP is working
• A Gmail account connected (if using Gmail for approvals)
• A Google Sheets file is ready (to store approved data)

Step 1: Open or Create a Workflow

To add Human in the Loop to your flow, you can either open an existing flow or create a new one by setting up your trigger and actions. Refer to this documentation to learn how to create a workflow. Here, we will create a new flow named “Reservation Approval Flow” using WPCafe as the trigger.

Step 2: Select Your Trigger

Click on Trigger, search for and select WPCafe, then choose the event “New Reservation Created”. Fetch the trigger data by creating a test reservation in WPCafe.

Step 3: Add Human in the Loop (HITL)

Click the + (Add Action) button, then select Human in the Loop. You will see two available channels: Gmail and Mail. 

Select the one you want to use for sending the approval request. Here, we’ll use Mail to show how Human in the Loop works in Bit Flows.

After selecting Mail (HITL), choose “Send and Wait for Response” as the action type. This sends the approval email and pauses the flow until the reviewer responds.

Step 4: Configure the Approval Email

Now fill in the required fields to set up the approval email:

From Email: Select the email address that will send the approval request.

To Email: Enter the reviewer’s email address (for example, the restaurant manager).

Subject: Write a clear subject line, such as “New Reservation Approval Required.”

Message: Write the email body. You can include dynamic reservation details such as customer name, email, reservation time, and number of guests. HTML formatting is supported.

Step 5: Set Approval Options

Under Approval Options, choose how the reviewer can respond: Approve Only or Approve and Disapprove. 

Then you can also customize the Button Labels (for example, “Confirm Reservation”) and select the Button Style, such as Primary, Secondary, or Success.

Step 6: Configure Rejection and Deadline Settings

Then choose what happens when the reviewer disapproves/rejects the request:  Continue the Flow keeps the workflow running to the next step, while Stop the Flow ends the workflow for that request.

Set Deadline:

Choose how long the system should wait for a response. You can set a time interval (for example, 2 hours or 1 day) or a specific date and time.

If No Response:

Choose what happens if the deadline passes with no reply: Continue the Flow or Stop the Flow.

Step 7: Test the Action

Click Test Run to verify the setup. Ensure that the approval email arrives correctly and that the approve/disapprove buttons are working perfectly.

Step 8: Add the Next Action

Click + Add Action and select Google Sheets (or any app where you want to send approved data). Choose an event, connect your account, select your spreadsheet, and map the fields. If your Google Sheets account isn’t connected yet, follow the Bit Flows guide to set it up.

This step saves approved reservations to your Google Sheet. Disapproved requests will not reach this step.

Congratulations! You’ve successfully configured Human in the Loop in Bit Flows.

Step 9: Test the Full Flow

Submit a test reservation in WPCafe, then open your email and click “Approve” or “Disapprove”.

• If you click Approve, the flow continues, and the reservation data is added to Google Sheets.
• If you click Disapprove, the flow stops, and no data is stored.

After clicking either button, a confirmation screen will appear. You can check your Google Sheet to confirm the data was saved correctly.

In this guide, we used WPCafe as a simple example to show how Human in the Loop works in Bit Flows. This is just a basic use case to help you understand the feature.

You can also build more advanced workflows based on your needs. For example, Human in the Loop can be used to:

• Verify WooCommerce order details before shipping the product to the customer
• Approve event or ticket bookings before issuing tickets
• Review form submissions before sending data to CRM or external tools
• Check important or sensitive data before processing it in your workflow

With Bit Flows, you can add human approval steps anywhere in your automation to make sure everything is correct before moving forward, while still keeping the rest of your process fully automated.