Get pricingBook a demo

Approvals

Some journeys shouldn't run all the way through on their own — for example, a message that needs a manager's sign-off before it reaches a customer. The Approval gate step pauses a contact's journey at that point and waits for a person to review and decide before it continues. Anyone responsible for reviewing these requests does it from the Approvals inbox, a dedicated list of everything currently waiting on a decision.

The Approval gate step

Add an Approval gate anywhere in a journey where you want a human check before the contact moves on. When a contact reaches the gate, the journey stops there for that contact and a request appears in the Approvals inbox. The gate has three possible outcomes you connect separately on the canvas: approved, rejected, and timeout (used if nobody responds in time), so you can send the contact down a different path depending on what happens.

The Approvals inbox

The Approvals inbox, at Automations > Approvals, lists every pending approval request across your journeys — who the request is for, which journey it came from, and a prompt describing what needs a decision. Each request also shows the journey's progress so far and the key facts behind it (with the full context available as raw JSON), plus a box for an optional note. It checks for new requests automatically, so approvers don't need to refresh the page.

Requests you approve or reject move into a Recently resolved list just below, so you can see what you've just decided. That list covers this visit only — it's cleared when you reload or navigate away, and it doesn't show decisions made earlier or by teammates. The inbox itself always shows what's still outstanding.

Steps: adding an approval gate

  1. On the journey canvas, open the step palette, switch to the Control category, and drag the Approval gate step onto the canvas.
  2. Connect it after the step where you want the journey to pause for review.
  3. Click the gate to open its settings panel and write the prompt approvers will see — a short description of what they're being asked to approve.
  4. Draw separate connections out of the gate's approved, rejected, and timeout outcomes to whatever should happen next on each path.
  5. Your changes save automatically. Publish the journey when you're ready for it to run for real contacts.

Steps: reviewing a request in the Approvals inbox

  1. Go to Automations > Approvals.
  2. Find the pending request you want to review — it shows the journey it came from, the contact (if there is one), and the prompt written for that gate.
  3. Read any additional context shown with the request, then choose Approve or Reject.
  4. Optionally add a note explaining your decision before submitting it.
  5. The request moves out of the pending list and into recently resolved, and the contact's journey continues down the matching path.

Tips

  • Write a clear, specific prompt on the Approval gate so approvers know exactly what they're being asked to sign off on without having to dig through the journey.
  • Always connect something to the timeout outcome, not just approved and rejected, so contacts don't get stuck indefinitely if a request is never reviewed.

FAQ

Q: Who can see and act on requests in the Approvals inbox? A: Anyone with access to the Automations area can open the inbox and approve or reject requests — it isn't limited to whoever built the journey.

Q: What happens to the contact while a request is pending? A: They stay paused at the Approval gate until someone approves or rejects the request, or until the timeout outcome fires if one is connected.