Quote Approval Rules

Quote Approval Rules let Sales Leadership, RevOps, Finance, and Legal require sign-off before a Sales Rep can send a quote to a prospect or customer. When a quote meets a rule's conditions, the rule's approvers must approve the quote before it moves to Approved and can be sent.

This page is organized into three parts:

• Understanding approvals explains how rules, approvers, and ordering work.
• How-to guides gives step-by-step instructions for admins, reps, and approvers.
• Reference lists every field, status, icon, and notification.

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Only Active approval rules are evaluated. A deactivated rule no longer adds approvals to quotes.

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Understanding approvals

What an approval rule is made of

Each approval rule has three parts:

• Name and description. The name is what reps and approvers see on the quote when the rule applies.
• Workflow condition(s). These are conditions on the quote, its offerings, its items, its conditional terms, or its documents. Groups of conditions are combined with AND, OR, or custom logic. When the conditions evaluate to true, the rule applies to the quote.
• Approver(s). One or more individual users or teams. Each must approve, in the order listed.

All days vs. every day of the quote

The FOR setting on a rule controls how the quote's dates are handled when the conditions are checked.

• All days of the Quote (the default) treats the entire contract term as one block. If the conditions are met anywhere in the term, the rule applies, even if the matching items appear at different times. For example, "Silver is on the quote and Gold is on the quote" is true even when Silver ends in March and Gold starts in April.
• Every day of the Quote checks each day separately. The rule applies only if the conditions are all true on the same day. In the same example, the rule applies only if Silver and Gold overlap on at least one date. A clean handoff from Silver to Gold doesn't count.

When rules are evaluated

Rules are evaluated against the quote while it is in Draft, and again when the rep submits it. A rep can see which approvals a draft quote will need before submitting it. The second step of the quote progress bar shows Get N Approvals, and clicking it lists the rules and approvers that currently apply. N counts the rules that apply, not the individual approvers.

If the quote changes while it is a draft, the list updates. For example, lowering a discount below a rule's threshold removes that rule. If no rules apply, the step reads No Approvals Required, and submitting the quote moves it straight to Approved.

Approvers within a rule are sequential

When a rule has more than one approver, they approve one at a time, in the order listed on the rule:

1. On submission, an email and/or slack notification goes only to the first approver.
2. Approver 2 is emailed only after Approver 1 approves, and so on down the list.
3. A later approver cannot approve while an earlier approver on the same rule is still pending.

If the approver is a team, every member of the team receives the email, and any one member can approve or deny for the whole team.

Example. A "Discount over 20%" rule lists Maria Gonzalez (Manager), Daniel Okafor (Director), and Sarah Kim (VP).

1. When the quote is submitted, only Maria is emailed.
2. When Maria approves, Daniel is emailed.
3. When Daniel approves, Sarah is emailed.
4. If Daniel denies the quote instead, Sarah is never emailed and the quote moves to Denied.

Rule Order controls the order across rules

When several rules apply to one quote, Rule Order decides which rules are worked first:

• Rules with a lower Rule Order must be fully approved before approvers on rules with a higher Rule Order are emailed.
• Rules with the same Rule Order run in parallel. Their first approvers are emailed at the same time.

In the progress list, rules appear in Rule Order sequence, numbered 1, 2, 3, and so on.

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Spacing Rule Order values out (for example 10, 20, 30) makes it easier to insert a new rule between existing ones later.

Skippable rules

A rule marked Skippable is auto-approved when a rule with an equal or higher Rule Order is approved. Use this when a more senior approval makes a lower-level review unnecessary. Skippable rules show as approved on the quote, just like rules approved by a person.

When the rep is also an approver

If the quote owner is the first approver on a rule and submits the quote themselves, that step is approved automatically.

When something changes after submission

To change a quote that is in review, approved, or denied, the rep clicks Edit Quote. This returns the quote to Draft and revokes the approvals already granted. The rules are evaluated again on the edited quote, and the rep must resubmit it.

If your admin allows it, users in specific roles can choose to keep existing approvals when they edit. See Retain approvals when editing a quote.

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How-to guides

Create an approval rule

Who can do this: users with the Tenant Admin or Sales Admin role. Users with Settings Read Only can also open these pages.

1. Go to Settings → Rules → Approval Rules.

   The list shows each rule's Name, Description, Rule Order, Skippable, Status, and created and updated dates.

   

2. Click New.

   

3. Enter a Name (required, up to 255 characters). Reps and approvers see this name on the quote. Optionally add a Description (up to 500 characters).

4. Leave Status as Active, or choose Inactive to save the rule without enforcing it yet.

5. Set Rule Order. It defaults to 1, and lower numbers are approved first. See Rule Order controls the order across rules.

6. Select Skippable Rule only if this rule should be auto-approved when a rule with an equal or higher order is approved.

7. Under Setup Workflow, build the conditions:

   1. In IF, choose All Conditions Are Met, Any Condition Is Met, or Custom Logic Is Met. Custom logic accepts expressions such as (1 AND 2) OR (3 AND NOT 4).
   2. In FOR, choose All days of the Quote or Every day of the Quote. See All days vs. every day of the quote for how they differ.
   3. In condition group 1, choose what to evaluate: Quote, Quote Conditional Terms, Quote Offering, Quote Item, or Quote Documents.
   4. Fill in Compare From Field, Operator, and Compare To. Compare To can be a fixed Value or another Field.
   5. Use + Add Condition inside the group to add another condition to that group. Use + Add Condition below the group to add another group.

8. Under THEN, add the approvers in the order they should approve:

   1. Click Select team or user. Use the Person tab to pick an individual user, or the Team tab to pick a team.

      

      

   2. Click + Add Another Approver for each additional approver. Each person or team can appear only once per rule.

   3. To reorder approvers, drag the handle to the left of a row. To remove one, click its trash icon. The handle and trash icon appear once a rule has two or more approvers.

   

9. Optional: expand Test Rule, choose a quote, and click Test Rule to see whether the rule and each condition evaluate to true or false for that quote.

10. Click Save.

Activate, deactivate, clone, or edit a rule

On Settings → Rules → Approval Rules, click the ⋮ menu at the end of a rule's row:

• Clone opens a new rule pre-filled with this rule's settings and named "Copy of …".
• Edit opens the rule. You can also click the row itself.
• Activate appears only on inactive rules.
• Deactivate asks you to confirm. Once deactivated, the rule is no longer applied to quotes.

Rules cannot be deleted. Deactivate a rule you no longer need.

Submit a quote for approval

Who: the Sales Rep or quote owner.

1. Open the draft quote. Click the second step of the progress bar (Get N Approvals) to review which approvals the quote needs.
2. Click Submit. If Submit is disabled, hover over it to see what must be resolved first, such as validation errors or a missing offering.
3. In Submit quote for approval, enter Approval Notes. This field is required. The note is saved to the quote's Notes panel so approvers can read it.
4. Click Send.

The quote's status changes to Review, and the first approver of each rule at the lowest Rule Order is emailed. Submitting does not send the quote to the customer.

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If your admin has turned on Approval Notes under Settings → Quote Settings → Approval, the admin's message also appears in this dialog, and the confirm button reads Save instead of Send.

Track approval progress on a quote

Who: anyone who can open the quote.

1. Open the quote. The second step of the progress bar shows X/N Approvals Received.
2. Click that step to open the approval list.

In this example:

• Maria (Manager) has approved.
• Daniel (Director) has been emailed and has not responded yet.
• Sarah (VP) is not emailed until Daniel approves.
• Non-standard payment terms has a higher Rule Order, so the Finance team has not been emailed yet.

To see when an approver was emailed, hover over the envelope icon:

To see who belongs to a team approver, click the team name or its arrow:

The icons are described in Approval status indicators.

Approve or deny a quote

Who: the approver whose turn it is. Approvers who belong to a team can act for that team.

1. Open the quote from the link in the approval email, or from Dashboard → Approvals, which lists quotes pending approval.

   When it is your turn, the progress bar shows Requires your approval and the approval list opens automatically.

   

2. Click Approve to approve your step, or Deny to reject the quote.

3. If you click Deny, enter a Reason (required, up to 500 characters) and click Save.

   

After you approve: the next approver on the rule is emailed. If every rule at the current Rule Order is complete, the first approvers of the next Rule Order are emailed. When all approvals are complete, the quote moves to Approved and the quote owner receives an email.

After you deny:

• The quote moves to Denied.
• The quote owner receives an email that includes your reason.
• No further approvers are emailed.
• The rep must click Edit Quote to return the quote to Draft, make changes, and resubmit.

Edit a quote after approvals were granted

1. On the quote, click Edit Quote.

2. If approvals have already been granted, a confirmation lists each approval that will be revoked, with who approved it and when.

   

3. Click Confirm. The quote returns to Draft, and the approvals listed are reset.

4. Make your changes and Submit again. The approval process restarts from the first approver.

Retain approvals when editing a quote

Admins can let specific roles keep granted approvals when they edit a quote.

1. Go to Settings → Quote Settings and expand Approval.
2. In Which Roles Can Retain Approvals When Moving Quote to Edit Mode, choose the roles.

Users in those roles see a Retain Existing Approvals switch in the edit confirmation dialog. When the switch is on, approvals are kept during editing unless the edit causes the rule to no longer apply. When the quote is resubmitted, the retained approvals still count as approved.

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Reference

Approval rule fields

Approval status indicators

These icons appear in the approval list on a quote.

Each rule in the list has a numbered circle. It shows a green check when every approver on the rule has approved, a red × when any approver denied, and a dash when it is waiting on you.

Approval step labels in the quote progress bar

Quote statuses involved in approvals

Notifications