Approvalsare requests that agents make on behalf of other agents and end users. Agents send requests to approvers. Approvers are other agents or end users who have the authority to review the request information and make a decision.

What's my plan?
Customer Service Suite Professional, Enterprise, or Enterprise Plus
Employee Service Suite Growth, Professional, Enterprise, or Enterprise Plus

Summary: ◀▼

You can enable or disable manual creation of approval requests, allowing agents to request approvals on behalf of others. Admins control who can approve requests, including whether end users are eligible approvers. Permissions and custom roles affect access, and API-created requests remain possible regardless of manual settings. Training and theme updates may be needed for smooth use and visibility of approval requests.

Approvals are requests that agents make on behalf of other agents and end users. Agents send requests to approvers. Approvers are other agents or end users who have the authority to review the request information and make a decision.

This article contains the following topics:
  • Allowing manual creation of approval requests
  • Configuring who can approve manually-created approval requests
  • Turning off manual creation of approval requests
Related resources:
  • Creating approval requests
  • Responding to an approval request as an agent
  • Responding to approval requests as an end user

Considerations for manually creating approval requests

Before allowing agents to manually create approval requests, consider the following:
  • Permissions. On Growth and Professional plans, admins and agents automatically have permission to create approval requests. On Enterprise and Enterprise Plus plans, admins and any custom roles created after approvals is turned on have permission to create approval requests by default. However, existing custom roles when approvals is turned on won't have permission to create approval requests until the role's permissions are updated to select Create approval requests. See Permissions that agents in custom roles can have.
  • Help center theme. If you have a customized help center theme, depending on when it was customized, you might need to manually update your custom theme for end users to be able to access approval requests assigned to them.
  • Training. For best results, make sure you share resources and train your agents on the feature before you turn it on so they can use it as intended.
  • Views. When approval requests are turned on for the first time, approval-related views are activated in your account.
  • API. Approval requests can be created through the Approval Requests API regardless of whether agents are allowed to manually create approval requests. API-created approval requests can be withdrawn by admins and some agents, depending on their permissions. Approval requests created by the API have a Sent by value of API.

Allowing manual creation of approval requests

The manual creation of approval requests is allowed by default for Employee Service Suite Growth plans and above and Customer Service Suite Professional plans and above. However, admins can turn off manual creation of approval requests if needed.

To turn on approval requests
  1. In Admin Center, click Workspaces in the sidebar, then select Agent tools > Approval requests.
  2. Select Allow creation of approval requests.
    Note: Even when this setting is deselected, approval requests can be created through the Approval Requests API.

Configuring who can approve manually-created approval requests

From the Approval requests page in Admin Center, admins can decide whether end users can be assigned as an approver. On Employee Service Suite plans, end users are allowed to approve requests by default. On Customer Service Suite plans, end users aren't allowed to approve requests by default.

Agents are always eligible approvers.

To configure who can approve requests
  1. In Admin Center, click Workspaces in the sidebar, then select Agent tools > Approval requests.
  2. Select or deselect Allow end users to approve requests.
    Note: Changes to this setting apply to approval requests that were created manually after the change only. Existing approval requests are unaffected.
  3. Click Save.

Turning off manual creation of approval requests

When manual creation of approval requests is turned off, agents lose the ability to add approval requests to tickets through the Agent Workspace. Existing approval requests continue to function.

To turn off approval requests
  1. In Admin Center, click Workspaces in the sidebar, then select Agent tools > Approval requests.
  2. Deselect Allow creation of approval requests.
  3. Click Save.
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