Approval flow

What it is#

An approval flow is the structured process for getting a brief from "draft" to "ready to send" with documented sign-offs from one or more reviewers. The flow names who needs to approve, in what order, what they're approving, and how their approval is recorded.

A good approval flow has two properties:

1. Async-friendly. Reviewers can sign off when they have time, not in a synchronous meeting. Each reviewer sees the brief, leaves inline comments, and approves with one click.
2. Auditable. Every approval is captured with timestamp, IP address, and the version of the brief that was approved. The record is immutable — disputes are resolved by pulling up the audit log, not by reading emails.

Why agencies care#

For agencies that bill against retainers or that ship reports clients use in their own decision-making, approvals matter for three reasons:

• Operational: prevents reports from going out with errors or missing context
• Political: the act of approval = client buy-in = no surprises in renewal conversations
• Legal: in professional services (legal, accounting, consulting), the approval log can be evidence in dispute resolution

What gets approved#

Different approval scopes work for different briefs:

• Whole-brief approval: one approver signs off on the entire artifact at once
• Section-level approval: different approvers for different sections (e.g., the compliance section routed to compliance, the strategy section to a partner)
• Internal-only approval: the brief is approved internally before client review
• Client-final approval: the brief is sent draft-state to the client for their formal sign-off before publishing/delivering

In SendBriefs specifically#

The default approval flow is whole-brief, but per-section approvers can be configured per template. Approvers click a private review link, leave inline comments anchored to specific blocks, and approve in one click. Every action enters the audit log.