As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly create an SOP approval workflow.

What to actually do

1. Use a tool built for this

   The route this page recommends

2. Do it yourself

   Second choice

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 1 hour until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open your current SOP repository, document-control policy and any existing approval forms, then gather the names or roles of the owner, drafter, reviewers and approvers.
   2. Record the current storage system, version-numbering method, review interval, publication method, access restrictions and process for withdrawing obsolete copies.
   3. Paste those details and any customer, quality, regulatory or contractual requirements into the prompt, replacing each bracketed slot and leaving unknown items marked as [NEEDS DECISION].
   4. Ask the model to produce the workflow, RACI table, approval gates, status list, exception route and implementation checklist in one response.
   5. Compare every role, approval gate, evidence requirement and escalation route against your current authority matrix and document-control rules, correcting the draft with the process owner.
   6. Run one ordinary change and one urgent change through the draft using a test copy of the SOP, then record who approved each step and update the workflow before publishing it.

   Prompt

   Create an SOP approval workflow for [organisation or team] covering [process or SOP type]. Use only the information I provide and mark missing information as [NEEDS DECISION] rather than inventing it.
   
   Context:
   - Purpose of the SOP: [purpose]
   - People or roles involved: [roles]
   - Person who owns the SOP: [role]
   - People who draft, review and approve it: [roles and authority]
   - Current storage and document tools: [tools]
   - Version-control method: [method, if any]
   - Review frequency or trigger: [frequency or trigger]
   - Required evidence or records: [records]
   - Escalation route: [route]
   - Any legal, regulatory, customer or quality requirements: [requirements]
   - Constraints or exceptions: [constraints]
   
   Produce:
   1. A plain-English workflow from drafting to publication, review, revision, withdrawal and archiving.
   2. A RACI-style table showing who is responsible, accountable, consulted and informed at each stage.
   3. Approval gates with the evidence required at each gate.
   4. Rules for version numbers, change history, effective dates, access permissions and obsolete copies.
   5. Escalation and exception handling, including who decides when a required approver is unavailable.
   6. A simple status list suitable for a task board.
   7. A short implementation checklist and a test scenario for an ordinary change and an urgent change.
   8. A list of decisions I must make before adoption.
   
   Keep the workflow practical for a UK workplace. Do not claim that a control is legally required unless I have supplied that requirement. Separate the proposed workflow from assumptions and unresolved decisions. Do not approve the SOP yourself.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

3. Hand it to a person

   The distant third

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.