Get approval in a workflow
Make a workflow pause until a person approves, choose who is told, and approve or reject the paused run.
Screenshots are retaken from IQ Entities on every release. Updated 14 October 2026.
Some work should not go further until someone has looked at it: a draft minute before it is signed, a board pack before it is circulated, a change to a company's record before it is made. A workflow can stop at that point and wait for a person to approve it, then carry on, or stop for good if they reject it. Workflows must be switched on for your organisation.
There are two ways to do it. Use a Human review step when the approval is a stage of its own, with its own instructions. Use the approval switch on another step when that one step is the risky part.
Add a Human review step
In the builder, choose the + where the approval belongs and choose Human review.
Name the step and write What should the reviewer check?: what they are approving and what would make them reject it.
Under Who, choose who is asked: Whoever started the run, Specific people, Everyone with a role or Everyone in the organization. Under How, choose In-app, Email or both.
Who decides who is told that a run is waiting, not who may approve it: anyone allowed to run workflows can approve. Choosing the right people is what stops a paused run going unnoticed.
Pause before any other step
On any step except a Human review or Create a task, switch on Ask someone to approve before continuing. The run stops before that step until a person approves it.
Approve or reject a paused run
Open the run from Recent runs on the Workflows page, or from the full list of runs behind it. A paused run shows Needs approval, and the step says This step needs your approval to continue.
Read what the earlier steps did, then choose Approve to let the run carry on, or Reject to stop it. A rejected run is cancelled and the steps after it do not run.
Once approved, the run carries on from the next step. When every step is done it shows Workflow completed.
Tips from practice
- Put the review after the steps that prepare the work and before the steps that send or change anything. A reviewer can only judge what already exists.
- A Human review can only approve or stop a run; it cannot collect a value. To ask for an answer when the run starts, add a question under What is each run about? (see Choose when a workflow runs).
- To wait for someone outside the team instead, such as a director or an adviser, use Ask for information in a workflow.