Delegate approvers

Overview

Available on Ramp Plus. See Ramp Plus overview for plan details.

Delegate an approver for your Ramp inbox when you're going out of the office, whether you're feeling under the weather, taking a vacation, or going on leave. Set someone as your backup to unblock your team's spend.

Important: Adding a delegate approver affects both existing and future approval chains. When you remove a delegate, they're removed from both pending and future approvals.

What can the delegate approver and original approver do and see?

Delegate approvers can do the following on behalf of their assigned user(s):

• Receive approval requests on behalf of the delegator (requests, transaction reviews, reimbursements, bills)
• Receive the weekly "Missing Items" email on behalf of the delegator

The original approver will continue to have the same approval functionality and receive notifications for items pending approvals.

Note: Delegate approvers will only see approvals they've completed in their own history. They won't have visibility into approvals made by the approver they're covering for.

Who can be a delegate approver?

Any non-Guest user who can serve as an approver in Ramp can be assigned as a delegate approver. This includes standard roles such as Employee, Manager, Accounting, Accounts Payable, Admin, Finance Admin, IT Admin, Owner, and View-Only Admin. Guest users and groups cannot be assigned. The original approver will continue to get notifications and be able to see their approvals queue.

Upon assignment and unassignment, both the delegate approver and original approver get an email confirmation that another Ramp user has added or removed them as a backup approver.

Who can assign a delegate approver? How is this assigned?

Self-delegation (setting your own delegate)

Users who have approvals can set their own delegate approver unless their company restricts delegation management to Admins. If that restriction applies, ask your Admin to set it for you. Otherwise, follow these steps:

1. Go to Profile (top right) > My settings > Delegation tab
2. Select Delegate approver and start typing the name of your delegate
3. Select the user you want to assign as your delegate
4. Under Schedule, choose Custom and enter Start and End dates, or choose Indefinite for no end date. Then click Save to start or schedule the delegation.

Delegating for others (Admins setting delegates for other users)

Admins can assign delegate approvers to other users:

1. Go to Company > People
2. Select the user who needs a delegate approver assigned to them, then click Edit Profile
3. Select Delegate approver and start typing the name of the delegate
4. Select the user you want to assign as their delegate
5. Under Schedule, choose Custom and enter Start and End dates, or choose Indefinite for no end date. Then click Save to start or schedule the delegation.

Auto delegation: Delegate approvals when you're out of office

Available on Ramp Plus. See Ramp Plus overview for plan details.

Beta. This feature is currently in Beta.

With auto delegation, Ramp schedules, activates, and ends your delegate approver based on qualifying out-of-office events. It supports Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar. You can sync delegation with one calendar provider at a time, not both.

Single-day absences: Calendar sync only schedules periods longer than 1 working day. For a single day off, turn off auto delegation and set your own dates in Delegation settings.

Connect Outlook Calendar

A Ramp Admin must first connect Outlook Calendar for your company. Employees don't sign in to Microsoft individually. After the company connection is complete, turn on calendar sync for your own delegation.

Turn on calendar sync

Your Ramp Admin must first connect your company's Google Calendar integration or connect Outlook Calendar. You and your delegate must both be eligible approvers. Ramp won't activate delegation if your selected delegate is already actively delegating their approvals to you. Your company's delegate policies still apply. If your company restricts delegation management to Admins, ask your Admin to manage it for you.

1. Open your Delegation settings.
2. Under Delegate, select the person who should cover your approvals. The sync option appears only after you've selected a delegate.
3. Turn on Sync with Google Calendar or Sync with Outlook Calendar, depending on your company's connected calendar.

Ramp checks your calendar when you turn sync on and displays the detected schedule, if one qualifies. While sync is on, dates come from your calendar and can't be edited manually.

Which calendar events qualify

Outlook Calendar: Add time off to your default Outlook calendar. Events on secondary or shared calendars aren't included. Set the event's Show as status to Out of office. Canceled events are ignored. A title such as PTO or vacation alone doesn't qualify.

Google Calendar: Add time off to your primary Google Calendar. Events on secondary calendars aren't included. Ramp only uses events you organized to schedule delegation. An invitation to someone else's time off doesn't qualify. An event must meet at least one of these conditions:

• Use Google Calendar's Out of office event type.
• Include one of these words or phrases in the title: out of office, OOO, PTO, paid time off, vacation, holiday, sick, parental leave, maternity leave, or paternity leave. Capitalization doesn't matter, but punctuation attached to a keyword can prevent a match.
• Include out of office in the description.

For either calendar: All-day events count by date. Timed events must last at least 8 hours. This duration requirement applies even to Out of office events. Shorter timed events are ignored before events are combined, so several short blocks don't add up. Check the resulting dates in Delegation settings.

How calendar events become delegation dates

Ramp combines overlapping or back-to-back qualifying events into one period. It also combines a Friday absence with an adjacent Monday absence across the weekend.

• Minimum period: The combined period must contain more than 1 working day. Working days are Monday through Friday, excluding US bank holidays. A Friday off plus the weekend still counts as only 1 working day. Two adjacent single-day events can qualify together.
• Coverage dates: Ramp trims weekends and holidays from the beginning and end, but keeps them inside a continuous period. Partial starting or ending days of timed events may also be excluded. Review the calculated coverage in Delegation settings.
• One period at a time: Ramp looks 7 days back and about 90 days ahead and schedules the next qualifying period, including one already in progress. Later periods are picked up as earlier ones finish. Review the currently selected period in Delegation settings.

When calendar sync runs

Ramp normally checks calendars hourly from about 3:45 AM to 7:45 PM Eastern Time (ET). Opening Delegation settings can also refresh the calendar, but a recent result may be reused rather than checked again immediately.

Delegation starts on the period's first working day and normally ends early in the morning ET on the day after its last day. Calendar changes are applied on the next successful sync. If you delete an event, another qualifying period may become the next schedule. If no qualifying periods remain, Ramp clears the schedule and ends active auto delegation, but calendar sync stays on.

Check auto delegation status

Check the dates and status in Delegation settings:

• Scheduled: A qualifying period is saved for an upcoming start date.
• Active: Your delegate is covering your approvals.
• Skipped: Delegation won't activate for the selected period.
• Inactive: No period is scheduled. With sync on, the page shows No out of office events detected.

For what your delegate can approve and see, review delegate approver permissions.

If refresh is paused: Last confirmed dates still apply. Ask your Ramp Admin to check the company calendar connection, or turn off auto delegation if your company's policy allows it.

Skip or resume a delegation period

In Delegation settings, select Skip schedule (the fast-forward icon) beside the detected dates. This prevents activation for that period and deactivates delegation if it's already active.

Select Unskip schedule (the undo icon) to resume automatic scheduling using the latest calendar events. Editing the dates of an already-skipped event doesn't clear the skip. Adding a new qualifying event to the selected period does clear it, so check your status after adding events.

Turn off auto delegation

Turn off Sync with Google Calendar or Sync with Outlook Calendar in Delegation settings. Ramp clears the calendar-based schedule and ends active auto delegation. Your delegate stays selected. To set your own dates, select Edit, choose Custom, enter the dates, and select Save.

If your Admin pauses, disconnects, or reconnects Outlook Calendar: Outlook calendar sync turns off for every employee using it, saved calendar-based dates are cleared, and active auto delegation ends. After the connection is restored, employees must turn on calendar sync again, or ask their Admin to do it if delegation management is restricted. Disconnecting in Ramp does not revoke Microsoft consent.

If your Admin disconnects Google Calendar: Calendar sync turns off for everyone at your company. Unlike turning off your own sync toggle, disconnecting preserves unskipped delegation dates. Your current or upcoming delegation continues to use those dates, but Ramp stops updating it from your calendar. Review or change the saved dates in Delegation settings.

What happens to approval chains and the activity tab?

Both the original approver and delegate approver will see pending requests and have the ability to approve them. The approval chains will be updated to reflect the delegate approver's name. Hovering over the double-person icon will show who the original approver is. The same will be reflected in the Activity tab to show the delegate approver's name acting on behalf of the original.

Frequently asked questions

What's the difference between a delegate approver and an assistant?

• Delegate approver: A temporary backup who receives and can act on approval requests on your behalf. Both the delegate and the original approver can see and approve items. Use this when someone is out of office.
• Assistant: An ongoing permission added to a user's existing role, allowing them to manage another user's Ramp account, including submitting expenses, managing cards, and viewing transactions. Assistants do not receive approval notifications. Use this for executive assistants or similar ongoing arrangements.

For more on the Assistant role, see User role deep-dive: Assistant.

Can my Admin turn on calendar sync for me?

Yes. Admins can edit your profile from People, open the Company tab, and use the Delegation section to turn on Sync with Google Calendar or Sync with Outlook Calendar for you. The same calendar-sync prerequisites apply, including selecting a delegate first. This uses your calendar, not your Admin's calendar.