Approvals allow administrators to review and approve content changes before they are published to the website. It helps ensure accuracy, quality, and consistency by adding a structured review step prior to going live. Approvals offer a more streamlined, user group-based option over Workflows.
Approvals are a Govstack addon feature. If you would like to add them to your website please contact your GHD account representative or project manager.
Approvals and Workflow
Approvals and workflow can be used together on the same site, but their functions cannot overlap . You cannot use Approvals on nodes that have a workflow applied. In these cases the workflow will take priority and the 'Send for Approval...' button will be replaced with the workflow's 'Request Publish...' button.
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User group settings
The approval process is based on user group permission settings. To send nodes for approval a user must be part of a user group that has the 'Send To Publish' content permission active and the 'Publish' permission toggled off.
To approve a page that has been sent for review a user must be part of a user group that has the 'Publish' permission.
To set group permissions follow these steps:
- In the Govstack back office select the 'User' section. You will need website administrator access to the back office to see this option
- Select the 'Groups' option at the top right of the interface
- Click the name of your target user group to open it for editing
- Scroll down to 'Default permissions' and locate the 'Content' settings
- If this group will send nodes for approval toggle on the 'Send To Publish' permission and toggle off the 'Publish' permission. If the group will approve nodes sent for approval turn off the 'Send To Publish' permission and turn on the 'Publish' permission
- Select 'Save' at the lower right of the interface to complete the process
To request approval or approve nodes a user group must have access to the targeted node.
If a user group has both the 'Send to Publish' and 'Publish' permissions the 'Publish' setting will take precedence and users in that group will be able to publish pages normally, without review.
Sending a node for approval
A user with 'Send to Publish' permissions can send a node for approval by selecting the 'Send for approval...' button at the lower right of the page interface. This button replaces the 'Save and publish...' button seen by users with 'Publish' permission and the 'Request publish...' button that appears on nodes with a workflow applied.
In the confirmation dialogue select the target languages and click 'Save' to complete the process.
This will add the node to the 'All Pending Approvals' list of the 'Reports' section, as well as send an email message to any users who have a 'Send To Publish' notification applied to that node.
You can set a Notification on the node to send yourself an email when it's published (see the Notifications section below for instructions), if your user group has these permissions.
Approving a node
Any user with 'Publish' permission can publish the node and complete the approval process. There are a number of options for how the approval can proceed.
Direct publishing
A user with 'Publish' permission can go directly to the node and publish it using the 'Save and publish...' button at the lower right of the node interface.
In the 'Reports' section the node will move from the 'All Pending Approvals' list to the 'All Approval' list, recording the approver user account and time of approval.
Note that this outcome is possible even if the publisher is not aware that an approval request has been sent. The node itself doesn't display that it is currently waiting on approval.
Publishing from the Reports section
A user with 'Publish' permission can go to the 'All Pending Approvals' list of the 'Reports' section to see a list of pending approvals. Selecting the name of the pending node in this list will take the user directly to the content where they can use the 'Save and publish...' button at the lower right of the node interface to complete the process.
In the 'Reports' section the node will move from the 'All Pending Approvals' list to the 'All Approval' list, recording the approver user account and time of approval.
Publishing from a notification
A user with 'Notifications' permission can set a node to send an email when an approval is requested (see the Notifications section below for instructions). That email will include a direct link back to that node.
Using this link you can go directly to the node and publish it using the 'Save and publish...' button at the lower right of the node interface.
In the 'Reports' section the node will move from the 'All Pending Approvals' list to the 'All Approval' list, recording the approver user account and time of approval.
Notifications
To set up email notifications for approval request and when nodes are published follow these steps:
- Right click the target node in the content tree to open the 'Action' menu
- Select "Notifications...". Note that some user groups may not have this option due to permission settings. Contact your site administrators to update this permission
- To receive notifications when an approval is requested turn on 'Send to Publish'. If you are sending requests and want to know when your nodes are published turn on 'Publish'
- Select 'Save' to confirm your notifications
Notifications must be applied on a node by node basis. However, note that notifications trickle down from parent nodes. This means that any child nodes will also create notification when trigger actions occur. In some cases this can create excessive amounts of email. Given this you may want to deactivate notifications once the approval process is complete.
Reports
The reports section is available at the top of the Govstack back office when the approvals tool is available. It includes two sub-sections.
All Approvals
This section shows a record of all nodes that have been approved, including the name of the node, when it was published, who published it, when the publish request was sent, and by who.
All Pending Approvals
This section shows a list of all nodes waiting for approval, including the name of the node, when the publish request was sent, and by who, and when the node was last edited.