Setup

Approvals: policies and board

Define who approves what by type and conditions, and track requests on a board with chain and history.

Approvals let you require the sign-off of one or more people before something moves forward, for example a discount above a limit.

Policies (Settings → Approvals)

The rule of who approves what lives in DATA, not in code: each policy has a type (discount, proposal, contract, expense…), an optional condition as a range (e.g., discount between 20% and 100%) and an ordered CHAIN of approvers (by user or by role).

Multiple levels: level 1 approves, it moves up to level 2, and so on to the last.
The highest range wins: with a 0-20% policy (manager) and another 20%+ (director), a 30% discount falls under the director's.
Editing a policy creates a NEW version. Approvals already made stay valid under the version in effect at the time.

Approvals board

In the side menu, "Approvals" lists requests by status (pending, approved, rejected). Opening one, you see the context, the chain with the current level highlighted, the decision history and, if you are the current level's approver, the Approve/Reject buttons with a notes field.

💡 Link an approval to an automation: the "Request approval" action evaluates the policy in effect and opens the request for the first approver.

Advanced approvals (v2 engine)

For richer rules, turn on Advanced approvals in Settings → Approvals. It is a per-company switch that starts OFF: nothing changes until you enable it, and everything that already exists keeps working.

By object and event: pick the object (e.g. opportunity) and when to evaluate (on create or on update).
Composite rules: combine several conditions over the record fields (e.g. discount ≥ 20% AND margin < 15%), with 'all' (AND) or 'any' (OR).
Multi-level chain: each level can require any one, all, or the majority of approvers; use people, roles, the requester's manager, the team lead, or the record owner.
SLA and escalation: set a deadline in business hours; on breach the request is escalated (notifies admins) or auto-rejected, per the policy.
Tamper-evident trail: every decision is stored in a hash-chained history; self-approval is blocked by default.
Versioning: editing creates a new version; older requests keep the version in force at the time.

💡 Cost and margin used in the rules never appear to the end customer; they are restricted to users with permission.

💡 To use "the requester's manager" as an approver, set each person's manager in Settings → Users (Manager column).

💡 Vacation delegation: in Settings → Approvals, each approver can delegate their approvals to a colleague for a period. While active, the chain uses the delegate in place of the delegator (keeping the approval count correct).

💡 Approval analytics: in Settings → Approvals, a panel shows the average time to decision, approval rate, how many breached the SLA, and the volume by approver (to find the bottleneck).

💡 100% configurable blocking: each policy chooses WHAT it blocks while the approval is pending (winning the opportunity, advancing the stage, sending the proposal, creating the order, sending for signature). When you turn the engine on, nothing is blocked — you tick only the effects you want.

💡 Simulator: test a policy against a hypothetical scenario (e.g. 30% discount) and see which policy wins, what it blocks, and the resolved approver chain — without creating anything.

💡 Ready-made templates: install pre-configured policies (discount over limit, high-value deal, margin below floor, proposal review) with one click and adjust them later.

💡 Batch decision: on the Approvals board, select several requests and approve or reject them all at once.

💡 Webhooks: subscribe to the approval.requested, approval.approved and approval.rejected events in Settings → Webhooks to integrate approvals with external systems.

💡 AI in the approver panel: when deciding, the "Analyze with AI" button summarizes the context, flags the risks and recommends — but never decides for you.

Open this article inside the system →

Approvals: policies and board

Policies (Settings → Approvals)

Approvals board

Advanced approvals (v2 engine)

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