Set up approvals for your project
This feature is currently rolling out and may not be available on your instance yet
This page refers to approvals, which is a feature for Jira Work Management that’s only available for:
Jira Work ManagementCloud Premium licenses
Jira Service Management Cloud Premium and Enterprise license
Jira Cloud Premium and Enterprise licenses
Before you add an approval step to a workflow
Make sure:
You’re in a team-managed project. Approvals are not available for company-managed projects currently. More about knowing whether your project is team-managed or company-managed
You have project admin permissions to add an approval step to a workflow.
You have transitions set up for your workflow. More about how to set up transitions
There are two ways you can set up an approval. You can set up approvals through the workflow editor or the approvals view for your business project. Setting up an approval process can help your team standardize and adhere to effective governance to minimize risk when delivering work.
Your team may need approval for work items as part of your business process before they can move to the next status in their workflow.
Before you can set up approvals, you’ll need to have transitions set for each status.
Set up approvals from the approvals tab
Here’s one way you can set up approvals for your business project:
Select Approvals in your project navigation (horizontal navigation above the project you’re viewing), then select Approvals.
If you’ve never used approvals in your business project before, you’ll need to add it to your navigation first. In your project navigation, select add to navigation (), then select Approvals.
Select Add to navigation.
Select Set up approvals.
Select which workflow to apply an approval to. Some projects may only have one workflow in which case you’ll set up an approval process for that one workflow. If you have multiple workflows, you’ll need to choose which workflow and associated work types to apply an approval process to.
Choose a status from your workflow to trigger an approval from.
Select Continue.
Select who you would like to nominate as preset approvers. Preset approvers will be automatically added when the work item reaches the status you’re triggering an approval from. You can always modify the list of approvers in a work item later.
Give the approver field a name. This is a custom user picker field that contains the people you want to approve the work item.
Choose a transition for when the work item is approved.
Choose a transition for when the work item is declined.
Select Save.
Select Update workflow at the top-right of the workflow editor to apply your approval and any changes to your workflow.
Set up approvals through your project settings
Another way you can set up approvals for your business project:
Next to your project's name in the sidebar, select More actions (•••), then Project settings.
Select Work types from the sidebar navigation on the left.
Choose which work type’s workflow you would like to edit, then select Edit workflow of that work type’s screen.
Select the status you want to add an approval step to.
Select the plus symbol next to Approvals in the right sidebar to open up the approvals setup screen.
Select who you would like to nominate as preset approvers. Preset approvers will be automatically added when the work item reaches the status you’re triggering an approval from. You can always go back and modify the list of approvers in a work item later.
Give the approver field a name. This is a user picker field that contains the people you want to approve the work item.
Choose a transition for when the work item is approved.
Choose a transition for when the work item is declined.
Select Save.
Select Update workflow at the top-right of the workflow editor to apply your approval and any changes to your workflow.
Troubleshoot setting up your approval
For further support when setting up approvals for your project, see more about troubleshooting your approval setup.
Important to note once your approval process is set up
When you set up approvals for your project, approvals will not be retrospectively applied to existing work items that are already at the status you’re triggering an approval from. The approval process will only be applied to new work items that go through the workflow.
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