Workflow Setup: Converting Approved Job Estimate to Active Job with Employee Access and Daily Form Submission

I am testing out my work flow - I filled out the job estimate form and I approved it. I am confused with where it is stuck. AI helped me generate it and I think there are some bugs.

What I am looking for is for this form to be filled out and approved and then it is turned into an active job. Then I need my employees to be able to access that job and fill out daily forms to submit for daily work at the job. Can you check the whole flow of this?

Do they need to have jotform accounts themselves?

Hi Karl,

Thanks for reaching out to Jotform Support. I'm an AI assistant here to assist you.

You’re on the right track with using a job estimate form and an approval flow. From what you described, there are two main parts to your setup:

1) Estimate form + approval → becomes an “active job”
That part depends on how you’ve designed your workflow (for example, what happens after the Approve outcome). I don’t have direct access to your specific flow to inspect each step, but I can explain the key pieces you’ll want to check:

1. Check the approval element settings in Workflow Builder and make sure that, on the Approved path, you have the actions that should “create” or mark the job as active (for example, updating a field, sending a notification, or triggering another form/task).
2. Verify that the approval is actually being completed in Jotform Inbox and that the status is changing to Approved (not staying Pending).
3. Confirm any follow-up elements (emails, tasks, integrations, etc.) are connected to the Approved outcome and not left unconnected.

To help narrow down where it’s stuck, it would be useful if you could share a screenshot of your workflow diagram (especially the steps after the approval), and tell us which step is not triggering as expected. Once we hear back from you, we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on and how to help.

2) Employees filling daily job forms
For your employees to access and submit daily forms for each active job, you have two main options:

A. Use “Assign Form” (employees have Jotform accounts)

With Assign Form, you can give specific employees ongoing access to a form so they can submit daily reports. Assignees do need a Jotform account (or must log in to an existing one) to use assigned forms.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Go to your daily work form in Form Builder.
2. Click on the Publish tab.
3. Select Assign Form on the left side of the page.
4. In the Assign Form section on the right, click in the Recipient field under Assign By Email and enter your employees’ email addresses.
5. Click on Send Invitation to invite them; you can also add a custom message.

Key point: Assignees must sign up for or log in to a Jotform account to access and fill forms assigned to them.

You can also copy the Assign Link and share it via your own channels, or upload a CSV if you have many employees.

B. Use workflow tasks / approval elements with login optional (no account required)

In Jotform Workflows, approvers or task assignees normally need to log in. However, for approval-type steps you can turn off the login requirement so they can act directly from the email link.

To change the login requirement for an approval step:

1. In Workflow Builder, select your Approval (or Approve & Sign) element and click its gear icon to open properties.
2. In the properties panel on the right, toggle Require Login for Approver/Signer off if you don’t want them to log in.

If login is required, when they click the email link they’ll be asked to log in before they can act. If login is not required, they can approve/deny or respond directly from the page that opens.

For a “daily job form” scenario, most people either:

• Assign the daily form to employees (so they log in and see all their tasks/submissions), or
• Just share the form’s public link (no assignment) and let employees submit it as many times as needed, possibly with a Job ID field to tie each submission to a specific active job.

If you tell us whether you prefer employees to log in (for better tracking) or not log in (for simplicity), we can suggest a more concrete structure for your “estimate → active job → daily forms” flow.

Give it a try and let us know how it goes.