Configure an approval workflow

Choose how posts in your workspace get approved before they publish: one quick approval, or several review stages.

Before you start

• You need to be the workspace owner or an Admin to change approval settings.
• Decide who should review posts at each stage. Invite them first if they aren't on your team yet.
• Check you're in the right workspace. Approval settings apply to one workspace at a time.

Open the feature

Open Settings, then choose Workspace > Post Approval Workflow. The Post approval workflow page shows two cards: One-step approval workflow and Multi-step approval workflow.

Steps

To use one approval step:

1. Turn on the toggle on the One-step approval workflow card.
2. Under Approval Mode, choose one option:
   • Approve Every Post: all posts require approval, regardless of role.
   • Approve by Role: only Authors require post approval.

To use several stages:

1. Turn on the toggle on the Multi-step approval workflow card.
2. Click Create a workflow.
3. Type a Workflow name.
4. Optional: under Exclude team member(s) from this workflow., add teammates whose posts should publish without review.
5. In Approval stage 1, type a Stage name and choose people under Select team member who can approve.
6. To include someone outside your workspace, such as a client, turn on send external invites and type their emails under Enter emails of external approvers. Press Enter or a comma after each email.
7. Under Approval requirement, choose Any one approver can approve or All approvers must approve.
8. To add another stage, click Add approval stage and repeat steps 5 to 7.
9. Click Create workflow.

Choose and manage workflows

Where the composer offers workflow selection, choose the intended workflow before submitting the post. Manage Workflows opens workflow management; Notify Admin is available in the applicable approval flow when an administrator needs to take action.

In workflow management, use Preview to inspect the stages, or the edit and delete actions to maintain a workflow. Change approval workflow changes the configured workflow choice. Review the confirmation and affected posts before changing or deleting an active workflow.

Expected result

With one-step approval, posts covered by your selected Approval Mode wait in Publish > Post Approval. Approve by Role does not require every role's posts to wait. With a multi-step workflow, posts subject to that workflow go through its stages in order. Final approval makes a post eligible for publishing at its scheduled time; it does not confirm delivery to the social network.

Example

An agency wants its team lead to check every post, then the client to sign off. Turn on Multi-step approval workflow and click Create a workflow. Name it "Client sign-off". Name Approval stage 1 "Team review" and select your team lead. Click Add approval stage, name it "Client review", turn on send external invites and type the client's email. Click Create workflow. If you have more than one workflow, click Set as default next to "Client sign-off".

Limits and permissions

• Multi-step approval is in Beta and depends on your plan.
• A workflow can have up to 10 stages. Workflow and stage names can be up to 30 characters.
• Each stage can invite up to 5 external approvers by email. They're invited by email.
• If an approver can't access every social account in the workflow, they're skipped for the accounts they can't see.

Troubleshooting

• You can't change the settings: ask the workspace owner or an Admin to make the change.
• Create a workflow is greyed out: turn on the Multi-step approval workflow toggle first.
• A teammate is missing from the approver list: check they've joined this workspace. See Invite a teammate.
• A post is still pending after one approval: a later stage still needs to approve it, or the stage is set to All approvers must approve.