Approvals

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Configure the step

Setting	What it does
Title ✱	What the approver sees, e.g. `Refund {{ $json.amount }} for {{ $json.customer }}`. Up to 200 characters.
Approvers	Up to 50 people, 20 groups and 20 roles. Anyone matching any of them may answer. Left empty, anyone with Editor on the workflow may answer.
Show	Up to 20 pieces of context for the approver, each a label and a value ✱. Display as text, markdown, a link, an image, a PDF, video, audio, a file, a table or JSON.
Fields	Up to 20 things the approver fills in: text, long text, number, yes/no or a dropdown. A field can be required always, or only for certain decisions (e.g. a reason only when rejecting).
Decisions	1 to 6 buttons. Default Approve and Reject. Each decision is its own output on the canvas.
Expires after	Minutes, hours or days. Empty means wait indefinitely.
On expiry	Fail the step (default), or send items out a Timed out output.
Notify	How approvers hear about it. See below.

Wait for Approval editor: question, Show the approver values, review form, Decisions, Who can approve, Notify and Expiry

What comes out

After a decision every item carries:

{
  "approval": {
    "decision": "approved",
    "fields": { "reason": "Within policy" },
    "answeredBy": "0192…",
    "answeredAt": "2026-10-26T10:04:00.000Z"
  }
}

Read it later as {{ $json.approval.fields.reason }}.

Notifications

Channel	How it works
Email approvers	Each approver gets an email, `Approval needed: <title>`, with a link. They sign in to decide. If no approvers are named, the person who ran the workflow is emailed.
Email addresses	Up to 20 extra addresses, comma separated.
Slack channel	Posts to a channel such as `#refunds` with a Review and answer link, through the run owner's connected Slack account in Tools.
App actions	Up to 5 extra Tool actions, e.g. create a ticket. Use `{{ $approval.url }}` in their arguments for the review link.

A failed notification never fails the run; the approval keeps waiting on the Approvals page. Email needs your Studio operator to have configured outgoing mail.

The Approvals page

Sidebar → Approvals.

Tab	Shows
Pending	Decisions waiting for you
Handled	Decided and expired approvals, newest first

Open one to see the request, the run's input, everything listed under Show, and a recommendation when an earlier AI step suggested approve or reject. Fill in the fields, choose a decision, and Submit decision. Before you submit, Studio previews the steps each decision would lead to.

Approvals page with one pending request in the Pending list

Reviewing a pending request: the question, the values shown to the approver, and the Approve / Reject decision

Rules

Approvers are checked when they answer, against current membership, groups and roles. Someone added to the group after the run started can answer; someone removed cannot.
An approver does not need access to the workflow itself.
The first answer wins. Submitting the same answer twice is harmless; a different answer after that is refused.

Expiry

With Expires after set and nobody answering in time:

Fail: the step fails with "Nobody answered this approval before it expired."
Timed out: items leave through the Timed out output, so you can escalate or apply a default.

Time spent waiting does not count towards the workflow's execution timeout.

What gets recorded

Event	Recorded in
The decision, who made it and the fields	The run's trace, and Audit logs
Each notification and whether it was delivered	The run's trace

Good practice

Name approvers by group or role, not individuals, so holidays do not block runs
Put the evidence in Show (the document, the amount, the AI's reasoning) so approvers do not have to go digging
Require a reason field for Reject
Set an expiry and route Timed out somewhere visible
Wire every decision output to something, even just a notification

A refund workflow pausing for approval, the Slack notification, and the approver deciding on the Approvals page.