Approvals

Approvals are available to all users (including collaborators) on Wrike for Marketers, Wrike for Marketers Enterprise, Business and higher accounts and accounts with Wrike Proof addon. Accounts, created after 10/1/2019 get the feature by default, if you don’t see Approvals in your account you can enable it from Wrike Labs.

⏱ 3 min read

• Overview
• Important Information
• Add Approvals in Tasks, Folders and Projects
• Approve a Task, Folder or a Project
• Add Approvals to Your Workflow
• Approvals in Request Forms
• See Details of Finished Approvals

Overview

Approvals help you organize the review process for your team. Use Approvals when you want to:

• Keep track of work that needs to be approved
• See who is responsible for approving the work of your team
• Determine whether any pending approvals could delay your project
• See all decisions made regarding the task/project/folder in the approvals tab and folder/project/task’s stream
• Create custom dashboard widgets based on approvals
• Set up the process of automated transitions between approval steps using workflow statuses.
• Automatically start an approval process upon submission of a request form (both internal and external).

Additionally, you can filter tasks, folders and projects according to their approval status, user(s) assigned as approvers, start or due dates and more.

Important Information

• You can add approvals to tasks, folders and projects, but not to spaces.
• It is not possible to start multiple approvals within one task, folder or project simultaneously. However, you can start a new approval as soon as the previous approval is finished.
• Approvals can't be added to blueprints. When you turn a task, folder or project with an active approval into a blueprint, the approval won't be saved as a part of the created blueprint.
• If you want to receive emails with information on approvals, which you take part in, make sure that email notifications are enabled.
• Though it's not possible to assign user groups as approvers, you can filter tasks/folders/projects containing approvals by the users from specific user groups, who are assigned as approvers, in List view, Table view, Files view and Gantt Chart.

Add Approvals in Tasks, Folders and Projects

To add an approval to a task/folder/project:

1. Open the task for which you want to add approvals, in Task view. Or alternatively, select a folder or a project from the left-hand Navigation panel.
2. Click on “Approvals” 1 within the panel above the description field.
3. Click the “+Start new approval” 2 button at the top of the description field.
4. Now you can:
   
   • Select task/folder/project approvers 3
   • Set the due date for the approval 4
   • Add a description of what needs to be approved 5
   • Add files for approval* 6
5. Click the “Advanced settings” button if you need to:
   
   • Finish this approval automatically when all approvers give their decision. If you deselect this option, you’ll have to finish the approval that you created manually.
   • Set up a status change upon the approval finish.
6. Click “Start approval” 7 to add approval to the task/folder/project.

*File Approvals are available on Wrike for Marketers and Wrike for Marketers Enterprise accounts. Professional and higher accounts can purchase File Approvals as a part of Wrike Proof addon. For more information on File Approvals please visit the File Approvals Help Center page.

Approval’s assignees will see a notification in their Inbox, as well as receive an email notification. The information about the new approval is also added to the task/folder/project stream. Note that if you delete all approvers, the approval will be cancelled and decisions cleared.

🔥Wrike Tip! Account admins can set up default “Advanced settings” for the whole account. To do this:

1. Click on your profile picture.
2. Select "Settings" from the dropdown.
3. Click "Settings" in the left panel.
4. Scroll to “Approvals settings by default” and check boxes if you want to:
   
   • Finish approvals automatically when the final decision is Approved.
   • Finish approvals automatically when the final decision is Rejected.

These boxes will be preselected in all approvals being created in the account, but users can change it manually when creating a new approval.

Approve a Task, Folder or a Project

All the tasks/folders/projects waiting for your approval can be found in your Inbox. Or, you can filter tasks, folders and projects according to their approval status, start and due date, creation date or assigned approvers.

🔥Wrike Tip! Create a dashboard widget to see all tasks or projects with pending approvals from one place.

To approve a task/folder/project:

1. Open a task, folder or a project that needs to be approved.
2. Find the approval panel at the top of the description field.
3. Hover over the number of approvers to the left of the “Approve” button to see who else is assigned for approval of the task/folder/project and whose approvals are pending.
4. Click “Approve” 1 or “Reject” 2 based on your decision.
5. Thereafter, the comment field appears where you can add some details on your approval.
6. Click "Send comment". 3

Until the approval is finished, you can undo your decision or add a comment to it.

The information about your decision, together with a comment you sent, is added to the task or project stream and approvals history.

If the approval didn’t finish automatically, then the approval creator would have to click the “Finish” button that appears after all approvers gave their decision.

Note that if a file has a pending approval, then you have to set a decision on the file first, in order to be able to close the task/folder/project approval.

Add Approvals to Your Workflow

Account admins can add Approvals to Custom Workflows.

Add Approvals to your workflow if you want to:

• Automatically create an approval in a task, folder or project when the status is changed.
• Predefine a change of task/project status based on approver decisions.
• Add files to the approval upon status change.

Please note that custom workflows for projects are available on accounts, created after 4/15/2019.

To add an approval:

1. Click your profile picture in the upper right-hand corner.
2. Select "Settings" from the dropdown.
3. Click "Workflow" in the left panel.
4. Select the Workflow in which you want to add approvals or create a new one.
5. Click the status for which you want to add an approval.
6. Click “Add approval”.
7. Next you can:
   
   • Select approvers for tasks/projects in the selected status. When a task/project status changes to the selected one, the approval is created automatically with the chosen approvers.
   • Assign the task's creator as a task approver upon status change.
   • Set up a due date for the created approval. Here you can enter number of days in which the approval process should be finished. If you need the task/project to be approved the same day the status is changed, enter 0 days into the field.
   • Select to finish the approval automatically when all approvers have given their decisions.
   • Set up automatic status change in case the task/project is approved or rejected.
8. Account with File Approvals can additionally select to add files for approval upon status change. You have 3 options:
   
   • Add all files automatically. All the attached files from a task/project will be added to approval.
   • Add files from previous approval. Files from the previous approval are added to the new one, launched upon the status change.
   • Require file selection. You will be asked to select files for approval after the status change.
9. Close the status window.
10. Click “Save” in the upper right-hand corner.

The approval process is launched automatically upon the status change, all the approvers receive notifications in their Inbox. When the approval process is finished the approval panel disappears, a new record is added to the approvals history and the task or project stream and the status changes automatically (if configured at step 7 above). Please note, the status changes only after the approval is finished.

Note that when you choose to start an approval upon status change together with requiring file selection, changing the status in any other view with exception of the Task view will create a draft approval only and won’t launch it. The user who started the approval and the approval assignee will receive an Inbox notification that a file needs to be added to the approval.

Approvals in Request Forms

Account admins and space admins can add approvals to request forms.

To add approvals to a request form:

1. Open a request form you want to edit or start creating a new one.
2. Next, on the panel to the right, under “Create approval” click “Add approval”.
3. After that you can:
   
   • Add approver(s) to the task or project that is being created. Note that if you don’t select approvers, only an approval draft is created. You will have to create an approval from the draft manually.
   • Set the approval due date.
   • Select to finish approval automatically when all approvers give their decision.
   • Select to change the task/project status depending on the approver’s decision.
   • Add the approval description.
   • Automatically add files attached to the task/project via request form, to the approval.
4. Click “Save” or “Publish” (if you are creating a new form).

It is possible to add conditional approvals to request forms. This way approvals are created only if the specific answer is chosen.

Note, when you add both an approval and a conditional approval, each with differing conditions, all users assigned as approvers in the request form (both from conditional approval and the general approval) will be added as approvers to a task or a project.

See Details of Finished Approvals

Although all the information about Approvals is kept in the task/folder/project stream, it is also possible to come back to the selected decisions made regarding a task, folder or a project and see additional details in one place. To do so:

1. Click on the “Approvals” (or “Approved”) button on the panel above the description field.
2. Select the approval for which you would like to see details.
3. Click the "See details” button.
4. In the pop-up that opens you will see:
   
   • Who started the approval process and when
   • Who approved or rejected the approval
   • Comments left regarding the decision
   • If files were added to the approval, you can see details and comments by switching to the Files tab