Understanding Approval Workflows
Every team has its own unique processes, so why should there be a limit on yours?
Statusbrew's Approval Workflows help teams collaborate by creating customizable multi-step and multi-user workflows that facilitate submitting, reviewing, approving, or rejecting outgoing social posts.
You can create and manage multi-step - multi-level approval workflows from approval workflow settings. The workflows will then be accessible from Compose for anyone with publishing permissions.
Use Approval Workflows to:
Mitigate errors 😵
Avoid grammatical mistakes ✍️
Ensure compliance ✅
Complete legal obligations 👩⚖️
Bolster agency collaboration 🤝
Approval Workflows are only available in Statusbrew's Premium and Enterprise plan.
Team Member Access
Owners and Admins have the flexibility to define who has the publishing abilities for specific social profiles. You can assign permissions to help control off-brand or accidental communications to your social accounts.
Team members assigned the "Create Post (Needs approval)" permission must get their posts approved before publishing.
To assign team member permissions for a specific profile/profile group,
From your Statusbrew dashboard, click on Settings
In Settings, open "Profiles" and search for your desired social profile. Click on the three-dot menu beside the profile and click on Edit OR
In Settings, open "Profile Group" and search for your desired profile group. Click on the three-dot menu beside the profile and click on Edit
In the Edit Profile/Profile Group screen, click on Add Permissions
Now, select Create Post (Needs Approval) permission and assign it to users/user groups who require content approvals
Adding Users/User Groups to the Full Publishing permission will also allow them to approve posts. These users will have complete control of all the actions in the Publish section, including approving/rejecting a post
Learn more about Permissions here.
Configuring Approval Workflows
Admins can set up tailored content approval workflows that involve multiple parties (team, clients, stakeholders, legal). You can set as many steps/levels as you need and assign team member(s) at each step using approval workflows.
Each level can have one or multiple approvers, and just one of the user's approval is enough to complete each step. You can also add a meaningful name to each level to properly group your approvers.
Approval rules are applied to all posts scheduled by users with Create Post (Needs Approval) access permissions.
To begin setting up customized content approval workflows for your organization,
From your Statusbrew dashboard, click on Settings
In Settings, open 'Approval Workflows' and click on 'Create Workflow' button in the top right
Start by giving your workflow a name such as Agency Workflow, Intern Worflow, etc.
Adding Steps
Start by giving your Step 1 a relevant name and assigning a user/user group as an approver
If you wish to add additional steps, click on + Add step and repeat the process for as many steps as you want
Workflow Settings
You also get the option to allow users with full publishing permission to skip steps on this workflow
Once you're done, click on Submit
If you delete an approval workflow with active posts awaiting approval, the posts will be automatically rejected.
Sending A Post For Approval
Submit posts for approval by following these steps in Compose,
In the Compose window, create your post like you normally do
To submit the post for approval, click on the Choose Approval dropdown and either choose to select the users or approval workflows. Now select to whom you wish to send the post for approval You have the option to submit the post as a draft or scheduled post
Posts awaiting approval will appear neatly under the Planner. As the original submitter, you can click on the scheduled post and edit its content.
Users in the workflow of creating and approving the posts will receive an email/mobile/desktop notification when the message is submitted.
Also, If you use Slack, you can connect your Statusbrew with your Slack workplace to receive the notifications. Learn more about Slack Integration.
Approving A Post
After the posts are submitted, approvers (admins and members with full publishing permission) will find an easy-to-use interface for approving or rejecting them from within the Planner.
Needs Approval
The Needs Approval section of the Planner (located on the left side pane) contains all the posts awaiting approval.
You can sort the posts accoring to Plans, soonest to furthest schedule time and last modified oldest to newest. Also, you can switch between posts awaiting your approval and all the posts awaiting approval.
Editing Or Approving A Post
To edit or approve any scheduled post, follow these simple steps:
In the Planner, go to 'Needs Approval' (By deafault, posts needing your aproval will open)
Click on the Edit post icon if you'd like to make some changes to the post
If the post is good to go, simply click on the Approve button
If the post has a multi-step approval workflow it will move to the second step
Rejecting A Post
If you decide to reject a post, you can easily do so by following these steps:
Under the Planner, click on any post awaiting approval to open the expanded view
Click on the Reject button, and you'll get a dialogue box where you can select a Rejection reason and give any additional comment
We have added a few most commonly used rejection reasons for you. You can update these by clicking on Manage rejection reasons
The author of the post will find the rejected post in their Rejected section. Click on any rejected post to view the approver's rejection reason and notes. You can edit and resend it for approval, or delete it.
Other options under this view include Post Preview, Share Post, Edit Post, and Delete Post. You can even mention a user/user group or add a comment to the post.