Approval workflows

Approvals adds an extra validation step before users can publish changes to a guide or survey, ensuring every change for your users has been reviewed. The typical flow: save your edits, request review, continue making changes while the review is open, and once approved, click Publish to go live. A banner at the top of the guide or survey page shows the current approval status: pending, denied, or approved.

Turn on approvals

Enabling approvals is a one-time admin action per project. Once turned on, editors request approval before publishing, unless an approver is allowed to skip that request.

1. Go to Settings > Projects, select your project, then click Guides & Surveys.
2. Expand the Approvals card.
3. Turn on Require approval.

When Require approval is on, choose who can approve:

• All project members: Anyone in the project can approve, except viewers. Org admins can always approve.
• Project managers and org admins: Managers and org admins can approve. Org admins can always approve.
• Specific users: Add at least one approver. Viewers can't approve.

Skip approval for approvers

Set Allow approvers to skip approval and/or self-approve.

When that setting is on, an approver who can publish sees Publish or Schedule as the main button. Request to publish or Request to schedule stays in the button menu.

• With no open request, Publish goes live. Amplitude doesn't create an approval, and it doesn't email approvers.
• With a pending request, Publish approves that request and publishes in one step. When notifications are on, Amplitude emails the person who requested review that it was approved, unless they published it themselves.
• Approvers can still Approve or Deny from the banner, including a request they submitted.

When the setting is off, the main button stays Request to publish or Request to schedule. Approvers still review from the banner. A requester who is also an approver can't approve their own request, except org admins.

Notifications

Enable request and approval notifications is on by default.

When it is on:

• Each approval request emails all approvers.
• Each approval emails the requester.
• Approvers who don't want a notification for every request can turn off approval-request notifications in Settings > Notifications.

When it is off, Amplitude doesn't email approvers or the requester. The request dialog tells the requester to ask an approver to review the guide or survey.

Request approval

Save unpublished changes first.

1. Open the guide or survey in the builder.
2. Click Request to publish. For a future start time, click Request to schedule.
3. Review the list of approvers. When notifications are on, Amplitude emails them when you submit. To speed up a review, contact an approver directly.
4. Click Request to publish or Request to schedule.

The live guide or survey stays as it is until someone publishes the approved draft. The builder shows a Pending approval banner while the request is open. If you can't publish yet, the button shows Pending approval.

You can click Cancel request at any time if you no longer wish to publish the changes.

Approve or deny a request

An approver opens the guide or survey and sees the Pending approval banner in the builder.

To approve:

1. Review the draft changes.
2. Click Approve.

When notifications are on, Amplitude emails the requester. Anyone with publish permission can then click Publish to make the approved draft live. An approver who can skip approval can also click Publish while the request is still pending. That approves the request and publishes it.

To deny:

1. Optionally add a comment explaining what needs to change.
2. Click Deny.

Amplitude clears the pending request. When notifications are on, Amplitude emails the requester. The requester can revise the draft and submit a new approval request.

Publish after approval

1. Confirm the builder shows the approved banner and that you have no unsaved changes.
2. Click Publish.

If you save more edits after approval, Amplitude cancels that approval, and you need to request a new one.

Unpublishing doesn't require an approval. This way the guide or survey can always be quickly removed whenever needed.

For testing before you request approval, go to Testing and Publishing.