Approvals
Several things in Align wait for someone's sign-off: a release, a committed cost, a change to release dates, an automatic status change. My Approvals collects the ones waiting on you in one list.
My Approvals
Click the clipboard icon at the top of the left sidebar (My Approvals). Its badge counts what is waiting on you. The list opens as My Pending Approvals.
It brings together six kinds of item:
| Card | What is waiting | Who sees it | How you decide |
|---|---|---|---|
| A release stage (the card is labelled with the stage's name) | A stage in a release's approval chain | People who can approve that stage and can see the project | In the list: add an optional comment, then Approve or Reject. View Release opens the release. |
| Cost approval | A committed cost waiting at your stage, with its amount, project and release | Admins (admin stage), managers (manager stage) and clients (client stage) | On the cost pages. See Cost Management. |
| Release cascade | A change to release dates that would move dependent releases. The card says how many releases move. | Admins and managers | See below. |
| Status change | An entry's status change proposed when its last blocker cleared | Admins and managers | See below. |
| Scheduled digest | A digest a scheduled agent has drafted and is not allowed to send by itself | The person it is waiting on | Read the draft in the list, then approve it. The button says where it will go. There is no reject: an unapproved digest expires. |
| Taskflow | An approval from Taskflow, when your workspace syncs Taskflow approvals | The person it is assigned to | In the list: Approve or Reject. Align sends the decision to Taskflow. Open in Taskflow opens it there. |
Cards for cost approvals, release cascades and status changes link out with Open to decide rather than deciding in the list.
My Approvals does not include time approvals (see Time Tracking), release approval gates (see Releases) or agreement approvals (see Agreements).
Release approval chains
When a release is created, it gets an approval chain from the project's approval template chosen as its Approval Flow (see Releases). The chain is a list of stages:
- Stages are decided in order. Only the current stage can be approved.
- Approving the last stage approves the release's chain. Rejecting any stage rejects the whole chain.
- Each decision records who made it, when, and the optional comment.
In the Plan workspace's List view, a release whose chain is waiting at a client stage shows Waiting on Client, and one whose chain is complete shows Approved. The chain also appears in the release's evidence package.
A release keeps the chain it was created with. Changing the project's templates later doesn't change it.
Who can approve a stage
| Stage set to | Who can approve |
|---|---|
| Admin only | Admins |
| Manager | Managers |
| Admin | Admins |
| Client approver | People with the Client role in your workspace who can see the project |
| A named person | That person |
Admins can approve any stage.
Approval templates
Approval templates decide which stages a release's chain has. Each project has its own. Admins edit them in Settings → Projects: open the project and choose the Approvals tab.
The templates every project starts with
| Template | Applies to | Stages |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Delivery Approval (default) | Releases | Manager Review, then Client Review |
| Internal Only Delivery | Releases | Manager Review, then Admin Review |
| Client Only Sign Off | Releases | Client Review |
| Low Risk Client Sign Off | Releases | Client Review |
| Cost Commitment Approval (default) | Cost changes | Manager Cost Review, then Client Cost Approval (until edited, costs keep Admin, then Manager, then Client: see below) |
| High Risk Delivery Approval | Releases and cost | Manager Review, then Admin Review, then Client Review |
Editing templates
- Make default makes a template the one new releases use. There is one default for each Applies to value. New releases draw on both the Releases default and the Releases and cost default, so keep only one of those two as a default.
- The Applies to selector beside a template's name sets what it governs: Releases, Cost changes, or Releases and cost.
- The pencil renames a template or changes its description. The bin deletes it.
- Under a template's stages, the arrows reorder a stage and the bin removes it.
- Add a stage: enter a name, choose who approves it (Admin only, Manager, Admin or Client approver) and, optionally, one named person instead of Anyone in that role, then click +. The named-person list offers the workspace's active clients.
- New template: enter a name, an optional Description and Applies to, then click Create. A new template is never made the default automatically.
A project with no default template creates releases with no approval step. A template with no stages creates no approval.
Releases use templates that apply to Releases or Releases and cost.
Committed costs, an entry's or a release's own, follow the project's cost template. That's the default template for cost (one for Cost changes before one for Releases and cost), else the most recently changed Cost changes template. The seeded Cost Commitment Approval, never edited, keeps the Admin, Manager, Client chain costs have always followed. Edit it, or make another template the default, and costs follow it as written. A stage set to Admin only or Admin is the admin's, Manager the manager's, and Client approver the project's own client. See Cost Management.
Release cascades and automatic status changes
Two project settings make a change wait for an admin or manager:
- Release cascades. With Approve cascading date changes on, moving a release's dates waits for approval when it would move releases that depend on it. See Releases.
- Automatic status changes. With Move an entry when its last blocker closes and Ask a manager first on, the status change that follows an entry's last blocker closing waits for approval. These are set in the project's CI & AI setup step (see Projects).
Both appear in My Approvals. The web app does not yet have a control for approving or rejecting them: they stay in the list until they are decided through the API.
Client approvers
Clients take part in two kinds of approval:
- Release stages set to Client approver. Anyone with the Client role in your workspace who can see the project can approve the stage, from My Approvals.
- The client stage of a cost approval. The project's client approves the committed cost on its cost page, or approves or declines it in the client portal.