Approvals: asking, deciding, and the queue

Ask anyone to approve a record, and answer the asks aimed at you — from the Approvals queue, the notification bell, the record's Posting panel, or straight from the email. A decision can write a Select value on the record, so everything downstream reacts to it like an ordinary edit. Ask anyone to approve anything Open a record and use its Posting panel to ask someone for an approval: pick a person, add a note saying why, and optionally a due window. The picker offers every member of the record's workspace, whatever their role — a read-only manager signing things off is a perfectly real arrangement. An ask can also carry a field write: choose a Select field and the values to write on approve and on reject, and the decision moves the record's own status the moment it lands. This works on any table, with no posting rules configured — and if you work alone, you can be your own approver. Asking needs only view access to the record. Asking is the point — you are requesting a change, not making one. Where you decide An ask reaches you in four places, and they all do exactly the same thing: • The Approvals queue — at the top of the notification bell's menu, with a live count of what is waiting on you. • The notification bell — Approve and Decline sit right in the notification, so a routine yes never needs a page. • The record itself — the Posting panel on the record page and in the peek drawer shows every ask with its state, and yours with buttons. • The email — see Decide from the email; you don't even need to be signed in. The queue Approvals, at the top of the notification bell's menu, gathers every ask across every workspace into three tabs: Waiting on you, You asked, and Done. Overdue rows are flagged, each row names the workspace, table and stage, and the record's name opens a peek so you can read what you're approving without leaving the list. On the pending tab the keyboard does the work: j and k move, A approves, R declines, O peeks at the record. Decide from the email Approval emails carry Review & approve and Decline buttons. Either one opens a small confirmation page showing what you're deciding; pressing the button on that page is what decides. Being asked is the authorization — the link is signed to exactly one ask and one approver, so no login is required. Two deliberate properties: links expire after 14 days, so a forwarded old email can't decide anything; and merely opening the link never decides — corporate security scanners follow every URL in every email, and an approval that decided on click would be decided by robots. Only the explicit press on the confirmation page counts. A no needs a reason Approving can be one click. Declining always asks you to say why — the reason matters most when the answer is no, and it travels back to the requester and onto the record. On a table with posting rules, a rejection drops the record to Changes requested with your note attached, so the person fixing it knows what to fix. Decisions are ordinary edits downstream When a decision writes a Select value, it is written through the normal save path — so views regroup, boards move the card, reports recount, and automations and webhooks fire exactly as if a person had edited the field. Approval is a way of asking for a change, not a parallel universe of state. And it is honest about failure: if the decision was recorded but the field write could not be applied, the ask says so rather than letting the workflow look further along than it is. Tips • Pin a routine sign-off to the bell: Approve and Decline sit inline, so the common case is two clicks including opening the bell. • Give asks a due window — overdue rows are flagged in the queue, and on tables with posting rules the due window is also what drives reminders and escalation. • Press <kbd>O</kbd> in the queue to peek at the record before deciding — approving something you haven't read is how approvals become theatre. • Going away? Set a delegate and an until-date under <strong>Out of office</strong> in Settings — new asks redirect to them with a visible trail. Good to know • Approval emails only carry decide buttons when the server knows its own address (App:BaseUrl) — without it, the email still notifies but deciding happens in the app. • A decline without a note is refused — say why, however briefly. • An emailed decide link expires after 14 days. After that, the page says so and points to the queue — the ask itself is still alive in the app. • On a stage with an "everyone" quorum, your single yes doesn't move the record — the stage advances when the last required answer lands. Who can do what • Asking for an approval needs only view access to the record. • Anyone in the record's workspace can be asked, including Viewers — deciding writes the field through the flow, not through their own edit rights. • Deciding from an email needs no login: the signed link authorizes exactly one approver on exactly one ask. • You can cancel an ask you raised while it is still pending; the approver's copy disappears from their queue.