Mail Approval Rules

Mail approval rules enforce an internal review step before a correspondence item can be dispatched to external recipients. When an author clicks Send and a matching approval rule exists, the correspondence enters a holding state. Designated approvers must approve or reject it — only then does it dispatch (or return to the author).

Why use approval rules

Approval rules are a governance control for high-stakes or legally sensitive correspondence. Common use cases:

• NCR responses — a quality manager must approve before responding to a non-conformance report
• Contractual letters — legal or commercial team approval before any contract-related correspondence is sent
• Urgent RFIs — senior engineer must sign off on technical responses before release
• All outgoing correspondence — a catch-all rule for regulated environments where all outgoing mail requires management approval

Creating an approval rule

1. Go to Settings → Mail → Approval Rules (org-level) or Project Settings → Mail → Approval Rules (project-level).
2. Click New Approval Rule.
3. Configure the rule:

Field	Required	Description
Name	Yes	A descriptive label (e.g. "NCR Response — Quality Manager Approval")
Correspondence type	Yes	The correspondence type this rule applies to. Select from your configured types (RFI, NCR, TQ, etc.). One rule applies to one type; create separate rules for multiple types.
Approvers	Yes	One or more members who must approve before dispatch. Search by name.
Approval mode	Yes	How many approvers are needed (see below)
Active	Yes	Only active rules are triggered at send time

Approval modes

Mode	Description
any_one	The correspondence dispatches as soon as any one of the listed approvers approves it. First approval wins.
all_must_approve	Every listed approver must approve before dispatch. If any approver rejects, the correspondence returns to the author.

Choose any_one for efficiency when any qualified approver can authorise. Choose all_must_approve when the correspondence requires sign-off from multiple distinct roles (e.g. both a technical lead and a commercial manager).

4. Click Save.

The approval workflow

Author's experience

1. Author composes correspondence and clicks Send.
2. The system detects a matching approval rule.
3. The correspondence status changes to Pending Approval. It is not dispatched yet.
4. Author receives a notification confirming the item is awaiting approval.
5. The item appears in the author's correspondence list with a Pending Approval badge.

Approver's experience

1. All listed approvers receive an in-app and email notification.

2. Approvers open the correspondence item from their notification or the Correspondence hub.

3. The approval panel appears with two actions:

   Approve — the approver can optionally add a comment. If the approval mode is any_one, the correspondence dispatches immediately. If all_must_approve, the item waits for remaining approvers.

   Reject — the approver must provide a rejection reason. The correspondence returns to Draft status and the author is notified with the reason. The author can edit and re-send.

4. Approved items dispatch automatically — no further author action is required.

Approval state

Status	Meaning
Pending Approval	Awaiting at least one approver action
Approved	Internal approval complete — dispatching or already dispatched
Rejected	One or more approvers rejected — returned to author as Draft

What approvers can see

Approvers see the full correspondence item: body text, recipients, attachments, subject, type, and all metadata. They review the content exactly as it will appear to external recipients.

tip

Train approvers to check both the content and the recipient list — incorrect recipients are a common reason for rejection at this stage.

Escalation

Mail approval rules do not have built-in escalation timers. If an approver is unavailable, the original author can:

• Withdraw the correspondence (returns it to Draft — approvers are notified)
• Contact an admin to reassign the approval step

Project Admins and Org Admins can manually approve or reject any item pending approval, regardless of whether they are listed as approvers.

Interaction with distribution rules

Approval rules and distribution rules work independently. Distribution rules add recipients at compose time; approval rules gate dispatch. The final recipient list (after any author edits to auto-added recipients) is what approvers review before dispatching.

What's next

• Mail Distribution Rules — auto-add recipients at compose time
• Mail Type Configuration — define the types that approval rules reference
• Correspondence — sending and managing correspondence