Individual publishing and approval workflows

What is this about?

The approval workflow ensures that scheduled posts are only published after a review. You define whether approval applies to all channels or only to certain ones, who approves and how early before the date the request goes out. Approvers decide in the app or via a link in the email.

There is one approval stage. The app does not support multi-stage processes such as editorial team, then brand, then legal department. Approvals are available for all workspaces, regardless of plan.

Prerequisites

• Owners and admins of the workspace change the settings.
• Approvers must be members of the workspace. For approval by email, they need a stored email address.

Step by step

1. Configure approvals. Open Plan → Approvals and click Settings. On the “Configure approvals” page, enable Approval required.
2. Choose the approval mode. Choose Global (all channels) or Per channel. With Per channel, you switch on Approval required for each channel under “Channel configuration”. Channels without approval are published immediately.
3. Define approvers. In global mode, you choose the members who receive approval emails under “Notification recipients”. In per-channel mode, you choose for each channel under “Recipients”: All team members, By role or Specific users. This selection only appears for channels with Approval required switched on.
4. Set lead time and auto-approval. Under Lead time you define how long before the scheduled date the approval is requested: 30 minutes to 7 days or Custom (5 minutes to 30 days). Under Auto-approval you optionally specify that a post is approved automatically after 60 minutes, 2, 4 or 24 hours without a response. The default is Disabled.
5. Schedule the post. Schedule the post as usual. When it reaches the lead time, it changes to Awaiting approval and the approvers are notified. If you publish right away, the post goes directly into approval.
6. Approve or reject. Approvers decide in the bell, under Plan → Approvals or directly in the post with Approve or Reject. When rejecting, they can give a reason.
7. Result. An approved post is Scheduled again and is published at the scheduled time. If the time has already been reached, it is published immediately. A rejected post goes back to Draft, the date is removed and the reason is shown on the post.

Approval via email link

Approvers receive an email with a link. The link opens a page with the post, the scheduled date and the channel. There they can Approve (with the confirmation “Confirm approval?”), Reject with a reason, or Edit. The link is valid for 3 days. After that, the decision can only be made in the app.

Approvals at a glance

Under Plan → Approvals you see the workspace's approvals, split into the tabs Pending, Approved, Rejected and All. You filter by status, “Only with note” or “Only without response”. With Undo you reverse a decision: the post is then pending approval again and a scheduled publication is stopped. This is not possible for posts that have already been published.

In the post, you end an ongoing approval with Withdraw approval. The post is then back to Draft without a date.

Approval in the channel canvas

In the channel canvas, the “Approvals” („Freigaben“) station shows whether the workspace default or a separate channel rule applies to the channel. Clicking it opens the channel rule. Details in the article Channel canvas and approval workflow.

Limits

• One approval stage, no sequence of several reviewers.
• Roles available for By role: Owner, Admin, Editor-in-Chief and Editor. Viewers and external editors cannot be selected.
• There are no comments directly on the post. Feedback goes through the reason given when rejecting.
• Without a response and without auto-approval, the post stays on Awaiting approval and is not published.

Frequently asked questions

Can people without an ALLMEDIA account approve?

Approval emails go to members of the workspace. The link itself works without signing in. You add external people to the workspace, for example with the “External editor” role, see Involving external reviewers.

What happens if I disable the approval workflow?

Posts scheduled in the future are published without approval.

Related articles

• Publishing content
• Channel canvas and approval workflow
• Workspace roles
• Configure notifications