Manage Approvals (beta)


Supported editions for this feature: Business Standard and Plus; Enterprise; Education and Enterprise for Education; G Suite Business; Essentials.  Compare your edition

With Approvals, users can send documents in Drive through a formal approval process. Reviewers can approve, reject, or leave feedback on the documents directly within Drive, Gmail, Docs, and other Google Workspace editors. You can use this process to get approval on a contract or new hire, approve changes for a document before publication, or other formal approval situations.

How it works

When a user sends a document for approval, the file is locked and approvers receive email or Drive notifications about the request. Approvers can follow a link to the document, where they can leave review comments and reject or approve the document. If a user requests approvals from multiple people, the document is approved once all reviewers approve the file, or rejected if a single reviewer rejects the file.  

When requesting approvals, users can specify a due date. As the due date approaches, reviewers receive reminders via email that their approval is needed. Reviewers also receive reminders if their approval is past due.

Locked files can't be edited until they're unlocked or approved. If a user unlocks a file, the current approval request is cancelled.

Sign Up for the Approvals beta

To sign up, fill out this form.

Control Approvals

As an administrator, you can enable or disable the document approval process, and you can allow for documents inside or outside of your organization to be eligible for Approvals.
 

Enable approvals
  1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

    Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

  2. From the Admin console Home page, go to Appsand thenGoogle Workspaceand thenDrive and Docs.
  3. Click Approvals.
  4. On the left, select the organizational unit where you want to to enable approvals.
  5. Click On for Allow approval requests on files owned by your organization.
  6. Click On for Allow users in your organization to request approvals on files.
Enable approvals for documents outside of your organization
  1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

    Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

  2. From the Admin console Home page, go to Appsand thenGoogle Workspaceand thenDrive and Docs.
  3. Click Approvals.
  4. On the left, select the organizational unit where you want to to enable approvals.
  5. Click On for Allow users in your organization to request approvals on files.

Train your users

To learn how to use document approvals or unlock files, refer your users to Get approvals on files in Google Drive. 

Known issues

  • Users who are not a part of the approval beta can't interact with the approval system. Non-beta users can't view or unlock files locked by beta users using the approval process.
  • The Android and iOS apps for Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides act as though they can edit locked Microsoft Office files, however, the apps cannot save changes to these locked files. In a future version of Approvals, the corresponding apps will warn users when they open those files.
  • The Approvals beta does not support exporting your approvals data through Google Takeout.

S​end beta feedback

You can provide feedback directly in the product.

  1. Click Menu.
  2. Click Send Feedback.
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