Availability: Business and Enterprise plans
An approval workflow routes documents to designated internal reviewers before they reach recipients. You configure approval once on a template — every document created from that template follows the same approval path automatically.
Note: These instructions apply to the classic PandaDoc experience. If you're on the new document and template experience, see Approval workflow (new experience).
How to use approval workflow
Note: Account owner, Admins, or Managers within a workspace can manage workflow and act as document approvers (if selected as approvers.) Members cannot manage approval workflow or act as approvers. Users with a Collaborator role will be unable to approve or send documents for approval.
The approval workflow feature is enabled and managed on the template level.
Open a template, go to Manage roles tab and click on the "Approval required" toggle.
Alternatively, select Workflow tab on the right panel and click on the Approved toggle to set up approvals.
To add an approver, start typing their name or email address in the pop-up
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. Only one approval is required for the document to move forward.
You can set up an 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.
To review your workflow setup, go to your template/document, then go to Manage roles tab and click View approval workflow.
Allow users to select document approvers
You can create an approval group with as many approvers as you need, then allow the document sender to select one approver from the list. Only the selected approver receives the request — this ensures the right person reviews each document.
To do this, select Create approver group, select approvers from the dropdown, then select Give document sender authority to select approver.
Note: If this setting is disabled, all approvers within the group will receive an email notification to approve the document. Only one approval is necessary for the document to be approved.
Once the document is ready to be sent for approval, the sender will need to select one approver from the list. This approver will then receive an email notification to approve the document.
Edit/delete workflow and approvers
Note: Admins and users with the relevant permission can manage approvals on behalf of others.
To edit approval workflow go to your template or draft document, then go to Manage roles tab and click Set up approval workflow.
Click the bin icon to delete an individual approver or an entire group.
Use the toggle to switch off approval workflow on your template/document.
Note: Users with an Admin, Manager, or custom role with permission "Can create & edit approval workflows" can edit approvals in draft documents.
What happens if an approver is deleted from a workspace?
Remove the approver from the workflow before removing them from the workspace. If you skip this step, a user with an Admin or Manager role must edit the approval workflow before the document is sent— otherwise the deleted approver remains in the workflow and documents get stuck. Contact us if your document is stuck.
Sending documents for approval
Once a document is created, the sender submits it for approval before it reaches the recipient.
When a document enters the approval step:
The document status changes to To approve.
Each configured approver receives an email notification.
Approvers can also find pending documents in their Inbox.
The approver selects Approve or Reject and can add a comment. The sender receives an email with the approver's decision.
Approved: the document moves to the next step. If no further steps remain, it's ready to send.
Rejected: the sender must edit and resubmit the document for approval.
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: Admins, Managers, and users with the relevant permissions can send the document once it’s approved.
If rejected, the document must be edited and resent for Approval.
The 'Latest activity' tab in Document Info demonstrates approval events.
Approving on behalf of other approvers
If an approver is unavailable (e.g., on PTO), Admins and users with the custom role permission "Can approve documents on behalf of all other approvers" can approve documents in their place.
To approve on behalf of someone else:
Open the document waiting for approval.
Click Approve in the top panel.
(Optional) Add a comment to indicate the reason for approving on their behalf.
The document's Audit trail, Latest activity, and Timeline on the Home page will show that the admin (or authorized user) approved the document on behalf of the original approver.
Conditional approvals
Availability: Business* and Enterprise plans
* This feature is available as a paid add-on in our Business plan.
Conditional approvals let you route a document to an approver only when specific conditions are met. If conditions are not met, the document skips that approver and moves to approved status automatically.
You can set a condition for:
Document value
Line item discount
Total discount
Line item discount total
Any quote variable ( available for PandaDoc CPQ users)
How to set up Conditional approvals
To set up conditions for your approval workflow, start by opening your template, then follow these steps:
Choose the vertical ellipses menu at the top of the page, then choose Workflow in the dropdown
On the Approved tile, turn on the toggle to access approval settings
Add individual approvers or an approver group
Click the +Add condition button, then add one or more conditions
Click Save
Tip: You can set up different conditions for individual approvers separately, or you can leave certain approvers without conditions if they need to approve every document.
Tip: Set an approval order if you’d like the document to go to only one approver at a time.
Note: Since the conditional approval currency is controlled by the document value currency, if you change the document value currency, the conditional approval currency will sync with it.
Click here to learn about conditional approvals with a quote builder block.
Additional condition logic and string operations
We’ve introduced more advanced logic for conditional approvals to give you greater flexibility in routing documents.
Supported string operations
You can now use the following operators when setting up conditions:
Contains
Not contains
Equals
Not equals
These are especially useful for conditions based on quote variables, such as customer segment or region.
Example: Trigger an approval only if the value of the "Customer segment" quote variable Contains "Enterprise".
Using AND and OR logic
In addition to using the OR operator to define when a condition group should trigger an approval, you can now use AND logic.
Note: Only one type of logical operator (AND or OR) can be applied across all conditions within the same approval step.
This means:
You can create a rule that requires all conditions to be true (AND), or
A rule that requires any condition to be true (OR),
But you cannot mix AND and OR within a single approver condition group.
When adding or editing conditions, select your desired logic from the dropdown at the top of the condition list.
Tracking approvals
Audit trail and the Latest activity tile each track a document’s approval status, such as when approval is automatically bypassed or a document has been approved.