# Approval button for HTML form



## skooby19_oc (Apr 22, 2009)

I'm trying to create a Vacation Request HTML form, which will live on our internal web server. Generating the request is simple enough. But what I need is for an Employee to submit a Vacation Request to their manager and when the manager receives the generated email vacation request, he should have the option to Approve or Deny. At that point, the info should be forwarded to HR (if approved) or back to the employee (if denied w/reasons). Any help would be appreciated.


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## Eriksrocks (Aug 7, 2005)

If you want to make it simple, you could just tell the manager to either approve it or deny it. If it's approved the manager manually forwards it, and if it's denied, the manager can manually reply to the employee.

Otherwise, this is going to take an advanced content management system at the very least to handle the different requests and whether they are approved or denied. 

You're probably going to need to learn PHP (if that's what your web server has installed) and MySQL or a similar programming language/database combination. Or you could outsource it to a web developer.


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## skooby19_oc (Apr 22, 2009)

That is true, I could have them manually forward them. But the intent on doing this is to streamline the process. The internal web server runs ASP, so ASP can be used if necessary.


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## colinsp (Sep 5, 2007)

If you are running your company email on an exchange server IIRC you can do this at the exchange server side, it is so long ago that I had anything to do with Exchange I can't remember any more. A search on Google may help if you are, other than that as suggested by Erik you would need to do it with some server side coding.


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## snorkytheweasel (May 3, 2006)

colinsp said:


> If you are running your company email on an exchange server IIRC you can do this at the exchange server side, it is so long ago that I had anything to do with Exchange I can't remember any more. A search on Google may help if you are, other than that as suggested by Erik you would need to do it with some server side coding.


I can think of 3 or more ways to do it.

It is very easy with With MS Outlook and MS Exchange (mail server): you can create an e-mail form with "voting buttons" that read "Approved" and "Denied." The employee sends the filled-in e-mail form to the boss. The boss, um, approves or denies by clicking one of the voting buttons, and forwards (or "replies all") to tell the employee and HR. In Outlook Help, look up "vote" or "voting button."

But -you don't need Exchange or Outlook. You can do it on a website with an HTML form and some simple scripting

Compose an "approved" statement
Compose a "Denied" statement
Create approve & deny buttons
The employee fills in the form, including her/his name and e-mail address and the manager's e-mail address
The employee clicks the "Submit" button. That sends an e-mail to the Manager, containing the employee info and vacation request info.
When the manager approves or denies on the e-mail s/he forwards/replies all and sends the appropriate message to HR and to the employee. 
This would be simple in PHP or Javascript.

You could make it slicker with a CSV (plain text) database - or a full-blown overkill SQL database - plus HTML forms, and e-mail. I'd go with one of the first two, unless the process is going to be integrated into an HR management system... or if you need a running record of all employee vacation requests. Then the database - CSV or SQL - makes sense.


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## Eriksrocks (Aug 7, 2005)

Then yes, the only way I know of would be to do it with ASP. Unfortunately, I only know PHP so I couldn't help you there. I haven't had any experience with Exchange, so I wouldn't know how that method would work either.


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