Approval Workflows

Two entirely different approval systems share the word "approval" — one gates schema changes, the other gates entry data. This page covers both.

Part 1 — Schema/Revision Approval

When a non-admin edits a SmartTable's schema, the change is versioned but held back from users until an admin approves it.

Why It Exists

Every SharePoint refresh or settings change creates a new smarttable version (see Refreshing a SmartTable). If a SmartTable Admin (rather than a System Admin) makes that change, it doesn't go live immediately — it's held as a pending revision until someone with approval rights reviews it. This prevents an unreviewed schema change from silently altering a smarttable everyone else is actively using.

The versioning underneath

Each refresh creates a new entry-version row carrying its own full field schema and an approved flag, rather than overwriting the previous one in place. Every existing entry stays permanently linked to the specific version it was created under, so an unapproved (or even a later-rejected) revision can never retroactively change how an already-submitted entry's data is interpreted — only newly created entries pick up whichever version is currently approved. This is also why a rejected revision doesn't need any cleanup step: the smarttable simply keeps pointing at the last approved version, and the rejected one is just an unused row.

A brand-new smarttable (created for the first time from a SharePoint URL, not a refresh of an existing one) goes through the same approval gate at the smarttable level itself, not just at the version level — until approved, it exists but isn't live for anyone but its creator and approvers.

Status Icons

A small icon next to each smarttable name in the sidebar shows its approval state:

Approving a Revision

1. Click the orange pending-revision icon next to the smarttable name
2. The Approve Revision modal opens
3. Optionally add a comment
4. Choose Approve or Reject

Previewing a Pending Version

Before approving a new version, you can see exactly what it will look like. Open the SmartTable, then More → Preview. This option appears for SmartTable Admins and System Admins. The preview has two tabs:

• Entry SmartTable: the entry form as it will be in the new version. Saving and submitting are turned off.
• Display: the print layout (display sheet) of the new version, without any entry's data in it.

Both tabs show the latest version even if it isn't approved yet, so you can check a SharePoint change before it reaches users.

Part 2 — Entry-Level Approval Workflow

A full multi-step sign-off chain for an entry's data, configured per SmartTable in Settings → Approval.

Turned on via Enable Multi-Step Approval in SmartTable Settings's Approval tab. Once enabled, a submitted entry doesn't count as finally approved until it's cleared every configured step, in order.

Step 0 — the submitter-chosen approver

An optional first gate, separate from the numbered steps below: before submitting, the user filling in the entry must pick who should approve it first. That person approves, and only then do the configured Approval Steps begin. A separate toggle, Notify step 0 approver(s) when subsequent steps are approved, controls whether that person keeps getting notified as the entry moves through the rest of the chain or is only involved at the start.

Approval Steps

Add as many numbered steps as needed with + Add Step. Each step independently configures:

Steps run in order — step 2's approvers can't act until step 1 is fully cleared.

Interleaved Mode

A separate toggle: Interleaved Mode — Each data entry step requires approval before the next step unlocks. This only matters for a SmartTable where data entry itself happens in stages (multiple observations, or a multi-part form filled in over time) — with Interleaved Mode on, each data-collection stage must clear its own approval before the next stage of data entry even becomes accessible, rather than all data being entered first and the whole thing approved at the end as one lump. This is what a "step" being tied to a specific entry_step rather than the generic post-submission approval means under the hood.

Approval Deadlines

Each approval step, and step 0, has an Approval deadline setting: the number of days approvers have to act, counted from when the entry was submitted. 0 means no deadline.

When a step has a deadline, the email asking approvers to act includes a Due line with the date and the time remaining, highlighted once it has passed. A missed deadline doesn't approve or reject anything by itself: the step keeps waiting for a decision.

Acting on an Approval

Approvers act the same way described on the Notifications page — via a notification with Approve/Reject action buttons, optionally with a comment and/or a signature attached to that specific decision.

Checking an Entry's Approval Status

In the entries table, the approval badge in the Action column shows progress as steps done out of total (for example 2/3). Click it to open the Approval Status panel, which lists each step with:

• its status (approved, rejected or pending) and whether any one or all of its approvers must approve
• who approved it and their comment
• for a pending step, who it's still waiting on

If the entry was rejected and resubmitted, the panel also shows the earlier approval rounds at the top. The latest rejection is shown first, with who rejected it and why, and each round's full list of decisions can be expanded. Approvers see the same summary above their Approve and Reject buttons when they open the entry, so they know what was wrong last time.

When an Entry Is Fully Approved

Once the last step is approved, the entry is published. The person who created it is notified, and the Approval tab of SmartTable Settings controls who else hears about it:

To send that email again, for example after fixing a recipient's email address, open the entry's Approval Status panel and click Send Email. You can adjust the subject and body before sending; the resent email doesn't include the signature. The button appears once the entry is published and an email subject, body and recipients are set.

Which Email Address Approval Mails Come From

By default, approval mails are sent from the server's own mail account. To send them from your organization's own mailbox instead (for example approvals@yourcompany.com):

1. The systemadmin account opens the profile menu → Communication Channels and clicks New Channel. Choose the provider (Office 365, Gmail or another SMTP server), enter the sender email, an optional sender name, and how to sign in: the mailbox password (for Gmail, an app password), or, for Office 365, an app registration with the Mail.Send permission (Tenant ID, Client ID, Client secret). Passwords and secrets are stored encrypted and never shown again; leave them blank when editing to keep them.
2. Use Send a test mail (the paper-plane icon) to check the account works. The list shows the result of the last test, with the reason when it failed.
3. A SmartTable admin opens SmartTable Settings → Approval and picks the channel under Approval Mail Sender → Send approval mails from, then saves.

The chosen channel sends that SmartTable's approver emails, its publish emails, and Send Email from the Approval Status panel. Changing it applies at once, also to entries already waiting for approval. If the channel is later turned off or deleted, the mails go out from the server's default account again; nothing is lost.