[Classic Editor] Approval workflow
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You can set up an automated internal Workflow to send documents to designated approvers before sending them to your recipients.
Availability: Business and Enterprise.
Note:
Account owner, Admins or Managers within a workspace can set up Approval Workflow and/or act as document Approvers.How to use Approval Workflow
The approval Workflow feature is enabled and managed on the template level.
- Open a template, click More > Workflow. Use the toggle to enable the Approval option on this template:
- To add an approver, simply start typing their name or email address in the popup.
- To add a group of approvers, click “+Add Approver Group”, give it a name and add your approvers.
- Click “Save” once finished.
Note:
a member of an Approver Group approves the document on behalf of the group.You can set up Approval order and add the same approver multiple times if you need them to check the document on several stages.
Note:
you cannot reuse the same Approver Group on other templates, you’ll have to re-create it.Edit/Delete Workflow and Approvers
To review, edit or delete your workflow setup, go to your template, then click on More > Workflow.
Click “Approval settings” to manage your Approvers and click the bin icon to delete an individual approver or an entire group:
Use the toggle to switch off Approval on your template:
Note:
you cannot switch on/off Approvals on a document.
What happens if an Approver is deleted from a workspace?
The Approver should be removed from the Workflow prior to being removed from the workspace. If not, the Approver will remain in the Approval Workflow and documents will remain stuck in the approval process. Email support@pandadoc.com if your document is stuck.
Sending documents for Approval
- Once a document is created, the document creator will send it for approval before it is sent to the recipient:
- The document status will change to “To Approve” and the Approver will receive the notification email. They can open the document and will have to options: Approve or Reject.
They can also provide an accompanying comment for the document creator



- Once the Approver rejects or approves the document, the document creator will receive an email notification along with the comment (if applicable).


The document status will be Approved or Rejected. If Approved, the document can be sent.
Note:
either Approver or document author can send the document once it’s approved.
If rejected, the document must be edited and resent for Approval.
Audit Trail and Activity in the Actions section demonstrate Approval events.
Conditional Approvals
Plan availability: Enterprise
Note:
Note, this feature is available by request. Please contact our Support team at support@pandadoc.com to have it enabled for you account.Set up a condition to require an approval if the condition is met. For example, send the document for Approval to ... , if a line item discount is over 50%.
You can set a condition for:
- A grand total
- A line item discount
Set up Conditional approvals
- Open Approval settings on the template by going to ...More > Workflow > Approval Settings
- Add an Approver or an Approver group
- Click “+ Condition” next to the Approver/group
- Set up the condition. Note, either a grand total or a line item discount can be used for the condition, not both
- Press Save


Change the currency of the Conditional approval
Conditional Approval currency is controlled by the document grand total currency. Just change the document grand total currency and the currency in the approval will sync with it.


Conditional approvals on a document
When a team member creates a document using the template with the conditional approval, they should make necessary customizations then click “Send for approval”. If the condition is not met, the document will be automatically approved. In the example below, the condition is to send for Approval if the document grand total is under $500. It got automatically approved, since the grand total exceeds this amount.
If the document has several approvers, and all/some of them are conditional, the Approval step will only go to those with the applied condition. Those whose condition isn’t met will be skipped.
Track Approvals in Audit Trail and Activity
Both Audit Trail and Document Activity will track activity as usual when an Approver is skipped:

