Deciding an approval

An approval is a request for permission before something happens. It reaches you in your inbox, by email, and — where they are set up — in Slack, Teams or as a push notification. Every route leads to the same page, built to be read and decided on a phone.

Reading the request#

Who is asking

An agent or a person, named at the top. The requester can never decide their own request.

Title and description

What they want to do and why, in their own words.

Risk

One of low, medium, high or critical, declared by the requester. It decides how you may reach the page — high and critical risk always need you to sign in — not whether the request is sound.

Before you decide

Shown first, in amber, when one of your organisation's ethics rules matched: the principle and the concern you are asked to weigh.

Key factors

The requester's checklist: each point marked as fine, an exception, or a note. Exceptions are the ones to read.

Details

The values the requester proposes to act with — an amount, an account, a date. Some may be open for you to correct.

Links and report

Evidence to open: links the requester attached, and the report the request is about, if there is one.

Questions

Anything an approver has already asked, and the requester's answers.

A request also shows when it was made, its deadline if it has one, and who it is waiting on. A request addressed to a team says so — any one of them can decide.

Approve or reject#

1. 1

   Read it

   Start with any concern and any exception among the key factors. Open the evidence if it matters.

2. 2

   Approve

   Press Approve. No reason is asked for, unless an ethics rule flagged the request (below). If you have asked a question that is not yet answered, the button reads Approve anyway.

3. 3

   Or reject

   Press Reject, say why not — what would need to change, or why this should not happen — and press Reject again. The page does not send a rejection without a reason, because the requester has to know what to change.

Your decision is final. You cannot decide the same request twice, and a request somebody else has just settled refuses a second decision with a message saying so.

Approve with changes#

The requester may open some of its details for correction — say, the amount or the date. Those fields are editable on the page, within the limits the requester set (a range, a list of choices, a length). Change a value and the button becomes Approve with changes; Undo changes puts the proposal back.

• Only fields that differ from the proposal are sent, so opening a field and leaving it as it was approves the proposal unchanged.
• Changes go with an approval. A rejection sends none.
• A request that needs more than one approval can only be approved as proposed: whoever approved first agreed to the proposal, not to your correction.
• Restricted fields are details the requester marked sensitive. They are hidden, and cannot be changed, when you decide without signing in — from an email link, or as a guest.

Once it is decided, the page lists each change — the field, what it was and what you made it — and the agent receives the corrected values to act on.

Ask the requester a question#

Use the question button beside Approve to ask something before you decide. The question goes to the requester — an agent reads it through the API or MCP — and the answer appears on the page, with a notification to you. The request stays open meanwhile; you can still decide without waiting. Asking needs you to be signed in.

Concerns and reasons#

When one of your organisation's ethics rules matched a request, the page opens with what your organisation asks you to weigh. Approving then takes a sentence: why is it right to go ahead? It goes on the record with your approval and into the evidence pack. Rejecting needs no extra reason beyond the usual one.

Because of that sentence, a flagged request is always decided signed in, on the page: not from a sign-in-free email link, not by a guest, and not with an Approve button in Slack or Teams, which offer Decline and a link instead. An ethics rule only ever adds oversight; it never approves anything.

When several people are asked#

A request can be addressed to several people or to a team; any one of them may decide. Your organisation's policies and ethics rules can also ask for more than one approval. Then:

• The page shows how many have approved against how many are needed, and who has decided so far with what they said — so an approver arriving second knows it.
• Each approval counts once per person. The request is approved when enough people have approved.
• One rejection settles it, however many approvals were needed. The point of asking several people is that any of them may stop it.
• The number needed is fixed when the request is made; a rule changed later does not move it.

Bringing somebody else in

An approver, or an administrator, can use Bring somebody else in to add people — by email, team, group or workspace — with an optional note shown on the request. It only adds: nobody is taken off, how many must agree does not change, and the requester is never added. The people added are notified as the original approvers were.

Guests deciding from an email#

Where an administrator has allowed it under Admin → Sharing, a request can name a guest — somebody outside the organisation it already knows. The guest decides from the link in their email, with no account. A guest can decide only low- and medium-risk requests that no ethics rule flagged, cannot see restricted fields, and cannot ask questions or bring anybody in. Their decision is recorded under their name, marked as a guest. See Sharing.

Deadlines#

A request may have a deadline, shown as expires on the page. You get one reminder when a quarter of the time is left. If nobody decides in time, the request expires: it can no longer be decided, and the requester is told. A requester may also withdraw a request, which closes it the same way. See Reminders and deadlines.

What the agent receives#

When the request settles, Deliverd tells whoever asked. An agent receives the outcome — approved, rejected or expired — who decided, when, your note, the values to act with and any changes you made. A person who asked is notified in the app and by email. The decision, where it was made (the page, an email link, chat or a guest link) and every change are kept in the audit log.