Approvals & rules
Automatic as long as your rules allow it. Otherwise approval.
For every action an AI agent takes, Nexus checks your rules. Standard cases go through, deviations go to the responsible person for approval, blocked customers are stopped. In the product, this is called guarded autonomy.
An approval case from order handling.
An existing customer orders 400 units by email and refers to an 18% discount. Your rule says: a special discount above 10% goes to the sales manager for approval. The agent reads the order, checks customer, prices and availability against SAP and prepares the sales order. The rule applies to the discount, so Nexus sends an approval request to the sales manager in Teams, showing the prepared order, the deviation and the rule. Once approved, Nexus creates exactly that version in SAP and records who approved it and when.
What the agent handled without approval
- Read the order from the email
- Checked customer, prices and availability in SAP
- Prepared the complete sales order
- Flagged the deviation with a reason
- Illustrative example, not customer data
What is guarded autonomy?
Guarded autonomy is the rule set in voluro Nexus that decides whether each action of an AI agent runs automatically, needs approval or is stopped. Deciding factors include order value, customer, terms, data class and environment. You define when an agent may act on its own. The check runs outside the language model.
Blanket approvals slow down every standard case. Full autonomy is too risky for transactions. The rules sit in between and can be adjusted as experience grows.
How Nexus decides on every action.
The check runs in Nexus, independently of the AI model. The model can neither bypass nor override a rule.
Prepare the action
The agent assembles the transaction, for example an SAP order with line items, prices and payment terms.
Check the rules
Nexus evaluates the current policy version: value, customer, terms, data class, environment.
Decide
Execute automatically, request approval or stop.
Execute or hand over
Allowed actions go through the tool to the target system. Everything else goes to the responsible person.
Log
Decision, rule, version and approver are written to the audit trail.
What rules decide on.
Policies combine several dimensions. The values below are an example; you set the thresholds and responsibilities.
| Dimension | Example rule | Decision |
|---|---|---|
| Order value | Standard order below €50,000 for an existing customer, no special discount | Automatic |
| Order value and discount | Special discount above 10% or order value from €50,000 | Approval: sales manager |
| Order value and terms | Order value from €250,000 or changed payment terms | Approval: finance and sales |
| Customer status | First order from a newly created business partner | Approval: finance |
| Customer status | Blocked customer: delivery or credit block in SAP | Stopped |
| Data class | Customer email with confidential pricing to an external address | Approval: inside sales |
| Environment | Write action in PROD by an unreleased agent version | Stopped |
| Action type | Read access to prices and availability | Automatic |
Example, not customer data. Rules can be set per process pack, agent, tool and environment.
Approvals where your people already work.
When an action needs approval, Nexus sends a request to Microsoft Teams or Outlook. The approver approves, rejects or sends it back with a comment. Nexus then executes exactly the approved version, not a later variant.
What an approval request contains
- The prepared transaction, such as order lines and terms
- The rule that triggered the approval
- Context from the systems involved
- Multi-step approvals, e.g. finance and sales
Microsoft TeamsApproval requiredApproved
Create sales order · Oberland Medizintechnik GmbH · €84,500.00
Order creation Salesforce → SAP · requested 05:31
Reason: Order value from €50,000 → sales manager approval
- Special discount
- 0%
- Availability
- confirmed
- Credit limit
- respected
- AI check
- no findings
What the rules cover for external agents.
Agentforce, Joule, Copilot or your own agents can call Nexus tools. Those calls are subject to the same rules, approvals and audit trail as Nexus agents.
Nexus controls the actions executed through Nexus tools, not the native actions an external agent takes inside its own platform. Those remain governed by that platform’s permissions and settings.
Rules you can audit.
Audit trail
For every action you can see which rule in which version made the decision and who approved it.
Versioned policies
Rule changes get a new version, are tested in TEST and only become active in PROD after approval.
Raise autonomy step by step
Many teams start by requiring approval for every write action. Once monitoring and evaluation show stable quality, thresholds go up.
Frequently asked questions about approvals and rules
Can the AI model get around a rule, for example through a clever prompt?
Nexus evaluates the rules outside the model, before any tool is called. Nothing the model writes changes the order value, the customer status or the policy.
Who maintains the rules?
Business and IT together. The business can adjust thresholds and responsibilities; permissions and tools stay with IT. Every change is versioned and tested before it goes live.
What happens if nobody approves?
The transaction isn’t executed until it is approved. Open approvals and how long they take show up in monitoring; you define deadlines and escalation paths.
Does this also apply to Agentforce, Joule or Copilot?
For actions these agents execute through Nexus tools, yes. Nexus doesn’t govern native actions inside their own platform.
Read on
Approvals in Teams and Outlook
What the approver sees and how they decide.
Order handling
Approval rules in the process pack from incoming order to sales order.
Security & trust
Roles, policies, audit and operations.
Monitoring and audit
Measure approval time, escalation rate and straight-through rate.
Start with one process.
30 minutes · free · with a senior architect. You get a verbal initial assessment and concrete next steps.