Approval workflows establish structured review and validation processes for shared document revisions within a project.

Configuring workflows requires balancing template rules for future review requests with project team setups that drive active, ongoing approvals.
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This article contains information about the following topics:

When a workflow template is modified or project configurations are adjusted (such as adding or removing team members in project settings), the changes affect future and ongoing approval requests differently:

Changes made to a workflow template (such as adding submitter teams) apply to future approval requests created after the update.

They do not rewrite the structure of active requests already in progress.

Adding or removing team members in Project Settings takes effect immediately on active, ongoing approvals. If a review step is stalled because a team is empty, adding a user to that team allows them to immediately step in and resume the review.

Archiving a document status, removing a team, or archiving an approval topic template elsewhere in project settings can cause validation errors when saving workflow updates or halt topic creation on ongoing approvals.
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When a new approval workflow is created for the first time, all foundational parameters must be configured before the template can be saved and activated.

If any required field is incomplete when attempting to save a new workflow, the system displays a pre-submission warning banner across the top of the page and blocks template creation.

Mandatory fields include:

2.2.1 Pipeline Limits

A single workflow supports up to 10 sequential review steps and a total of 20 reviewer teams across the pipeline.

2.2.2 Team Selection vs. Member Presence

During initial creation, the system validates that submitter, reviewer, and final reviewer teams are selected.

However, it does not check whether those teams contain actual members.

2.2.3 Execution Requirements & Auto-Approve

To make an approval request completable from start to finish:

2.2.4 Administrator Rights

Project administrators do not hold automatic operational rights.

To perform actions during an approval, an administrator must be an explicit member of the relevant team:

Certain operations remain flexible and can be adjusted during initial setup or updated at any point after a workflow is active.

These flexible operations fall into two distinct categories:

Workflow Template Settings (edited directly on the workflow setup page)

Project Team Member Management (edited on the Project Teams page across all workflow roles).

These settings can be changed within the workflow configuration menu at any time, directly affecting future approval requests:

3.1.1 Submitter Teams

Administrators can add or remove submitter teams post-submission to control which project teams are permitted to launch new approval requests under this workflow.

3.1.2 Approval Topic Templates

Approval topic templates linked to specific outcomes (Approved, Approved with Comments, or Rejected) can be added, updated, or unlinked at any time to control issue tracking during reviews.

Adding or removing individual users takes place on the Project Teams page and does not require editing or re-saving the workflow template.

Crucially, member management applies to all three workflow team types, directly impacting who can perform actions:

3.2.1 Submitter Teams

Adding or removing members changes who can select the workflow to launch new approval requests.

3.2.2 Reviewer Teams

Adding or removing members changes who can access active review steps, add markups/comments, and submit step validation indications.

3.2.3 Final Reviewer Teams

Adding or removing members changes who can render the final decision and close out an active approval request.

Once a workflow template is saved and submitted for the first time, key structural parameters lock to ensure consistent evaluation rules across approval requests.
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4.1.1 Locked Parameters

Time settings, review steps, assigned reviewer teams, step durations, auto-approve toggles, final approval teams, and mapped final document statuses cannot be altered after initial submission.

4.1.2 Editable Parameters

Only the workflow title, submitter team assignments, and linked approval topic templates remain editable post-submission.

Saving any post-submission edit to an existing workflow (such as updating the title) triggers a full re-validation check across the entire template.
If an element used in the workflow was archived or deleted in project settings after initial creation, re-validation fails until resolved.
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4.3.1 Archiving Workflows

Hides the active workflow from creation menus so project members cannot select it for new requests.

4.3.2 Restoring Workflows

Re-enables an archived workflow in creation menus for assigned submitter teams.

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When project settings or team memberships change while approval requests are actively in progress, the system handles access, topic creation, and workflow progression according to specific rules.

Project members can be added to or removed from workflow teams on the Project Teams page at any time without editing the workflow template itself.

5.1.1 Submitter Team Members

Adding a user to a submitter team lets them create new requests going forward. However, submitter team membership never grants shared visibility into requests created by teammates—access to a submitted request remains strictly personal to the individual creator.

5.1.2 Reviewer Team Members

Adding a user to a reviewer team immediately grants them access to active approval requests currently at that review step. Removing all members from a reviewer team will freeze ongoing requests at that step until a new member is added—unless auto-approve is enabled for that step, in which case the request will automatically approve and advance when the step deadline passes.

5.1.3 Final Reviewer Team Members

Adding a user to a final reviewer team immediately grants them access to render final decisions on active requests reaching the final approval step. Removing all members from a final reviewer team freezes ongoing requests at the final step until a user is added (auto-approve is not available for final review steps).

Deleted project teams cannot be recovered.

If a team assigned to a workflow is deleted from project settings, the operational impact depends on the team's role in the workflow lifecycle:

5.2.1 Deleted Submitter Teams

Submitter teams remain editable post-submission.

An administrator can edit the workflow configuration directly and assign a new active submitter team.

5.2.2 Deleted Reviewer Teams

Review steps are locked post-submission.

5.2.3 Deleted Final Reviewer Teams

Final approval teams are locked post-submission, and auto-approve is not available for final review steps.

If all final reviewer teams are deleted, ongoing approval requests are stalled indefinitely.

5.2.4 Recommended Action for Stalled or Uncompletable Workflows
When a review step stalls with no remaining teams (and auto-approve is off), or when all final reviewer teams are deleted, the recommendation is to archive the broken approval workflow and discard all documents strictly from open approval requests that follow that specific workflow.

Optionally, a new approval workflow can be created if a replacement is needed.

Approval topic templates are configured separately for each decision outcome (e.g., Approved, Approved with Comments, or Rejected).

The system processes approval topic template changes independently per outcome:

5.3.1 Outcome-Specific Isolation

Archiving or changing an approval topic template for one decision outcome only impacts that specific outcome.

All other outcomes with intact approval topic templates continue creating topics as expected.

5.3.2 Archiving a Linked Approval Topic Template

If an approval topic template assigned to an outcome is archived, ongoing approval requests following that workflow (and new requests submitted while unlinked) will not generate topics if that outcome is selected.

5.3.3 Restoring an Archived Approval Topic Template

Recovering (unarchiving) the original approval topic template automatically re-enables topic creation according to that template across all associated approval requests.

5.3.4 Configuring a Different Approval Topic Template

If an administrator updates the workflow post-submission to assign a different active approval topic template, ongoing approval requests initiated prior to the edit will not generate topics using the new template.

Only new approval requests submitted after the reconfiguration will generate topics based on the newly assigned template.