How do I get a customer's approval on a step?
Send a customer a file or a note to approve from the task. Signed into your portal, they can approve a step you asked them to sign off, which finishes the job and opens the next step, or ask for changes with a note, which keeps the job open and tells your team. The Confirm button on the status link still only records.
Some steps need the customer's yes before you carry on: a logo, a plan, a draft. Put an "Ask to sign" job with no agreement on that step, and the customer can approve it, or tell you what to change, from their client portal.
Send something for approval
- Open the task and find the "Customer sign-off" card.
- Press Send for approval.
- Pick one of the customer's files, or press Upload a file to add one. You can also send just a note with no file.
- Write a note in "Note to the customer (they see this)" if you like, and press Send.
The file you pick is shared with the customer, so it also shows in their portal's Documents. They get an email, "Please review" and the step's name, with their progress link, which takes them to the sign-in. If they have never signed in to your portal, they get an invitation first.
Any member of your team can send. Sharing a file that is not shared with the customer yet needs an organization admin, so other team members see only the files already shared with that customer, and no upload.
We can't send it when:
- the customer has no email address. They need one to sign in and review. Add one, or ask them to reply "approved" by text.
- we can't email them right now, for example their address bounced or they unsubscribed from your emails.
- you removed their portal access. Invite them again first.
Send a new version
When the customer asks for changes, make them, then press Send a new version on the same card. It works the same way, and the customer always answers the newest version. The one they already answered stays listed underneath, with what they said. If they had not answered the old version yet, it can no longer be answered: only the newest can.
If someone on your team sends a version at the same moment, you see "Someone just sent a version. Refresh and try again."
What your customer sees
When the job opens, their portal home lists it under "What we still need from you" as "Review and approve" and the step, with a Review button. Review opens the step's own page. If you sent them a file it is there to open or download, with your note, and below it two buttons:
- Approve. The job is done. It is ticked off with a note saying the customer approved it in the portal (plus their comment, if they left one), and the next step of their journey opens by itself.
- Request changes. They must say what they want changed. The job stays open, and your team gets a "Changes requested" alert in the bell and a comment on the task with their words.
After they answer, the page shows "Approved", or "You asked for changes. We will let you know when the new version is ready." Earlier versions stay listed underneath with what they said about each. Only the newest version can be answered, so nobody approves a file you have already replaced.
What your team sees
The task's "Customer sign-off" card lists each version sent and the answer: "Approved in the portal", or "Asked for changes:" and their words.
The status link still only records
On the progress link you send by text or email, a step with nothing sent for review keeps its one-tap Confirm. Confirm records that they agreed and when, but it does not finish the job: anyone holding that link can press it, so your team still ticks the job off. When there is a version waiting for them, the link shows "Sign in to review" instead, because the file is only shown behind the sign-in.
A customer with no email cannot sign into the portal. When the AI is answering their chat on Auto-pilot, they can reply "approved" by text or WhatsApp once we know it is really them, see Can the AI do something for a customer during a conversation, not just answer?.
Good to know
- An approval counts as the job being finished by the customer's signature, so an automation set to run "when a task is finished by signature" runs on it too.
- A step that carries an agreement to sign is signed, not approved, see How do I get a customer to sign an agreement?.
- If the step has a choice that a customer's approval picks, their approval picks it too, see How do I make a step end differently when a customer declines?.
Who can do this
The client portal comes with Pro and up. The customer needs to be signed in, see How do I give my customers a link to sign in and see their documents?.
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More in Team management: setting it up
The other guides people read alongside this one.
- How do I turn on Team management, and what does it actually add?
Team management adds a shared workspace for your staff: your customer journey, tasks and a queue of work to hand out, plus time tracking and schedules on Pro and up. What you get depends on your plan.
- What's the difference between a "pipeline" and the "customer journey"?
A pipeline is the general idea of stages a contact moves through. The customer journey is your main pipeline, the one new contacts start in, and it also creates tasks automatically and marks when a lead becomes a customer.
- How do I set up a pipeline for how my customers move through my business?
Create a pipeline, then open it in the journey editor to add the steps your work actually goes through and the jobs your team does at each one. Publish, and it is live.
- How do I set up my customer journey?
We draft a set of steps for your business with AI, and you review and edit every one before anything is installed. You can tailor it again at any time, and we say plainly what reaches the customers who are already in it.
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