Ideas for Approval Matrix in CI

There's one problem with having matrix - these flows can change, and this is where more flexibility will pay off, god knows I've paid the price of having to re-write simple solutions quite few times.

It's probably slightly more work at first, but here's how I would do it.

Have table with different phases / states:
1 - teamlead approval
2 - manager approval
3 - hr approval
...
10 - approved

Then, I add current state ID to form table, it starts with 1, and you can easily query DB to get all "pending manager approval" rows.

When user approves, you have approvals log table that keeps form ID, user ID who approved it, timestamp, and approval phase / state ID), and you move the form state ID to next state.

You can eventually expand this system relatively easily, like keeping different options in DB too (if current state is 1, and you approve, it moves to state 2, if you reject, it'll move to state 10).