Approvals in Confluence, now on Open Beta

[Koloman Pfeffer]

Just been testing the beta feature and it works well with what it can do. For now though it doesn't have the granularity or overall control by me as an admin and quality manager to enforce company policies on approvals.

For that to work, we would need the points I described in my first post, but at least more extensive dynamic controls via automations (set approvers dynamically by smart values and adding approvers to already running approvals) so we could work around the other limitations by outsourcing the actual "approver management" and approval stages to Jira.

Edit: One big limitation that I just found, is that I can't set a page to be approved by myself. Not even by automations. That means I could never set up a flow to be triggered by other users that requires my approval. Since we still don't have a Confluence Automation User like in Jira, this limitation should not be there in my opinion.

[Martin Stirnberg _Communardo_]

Great addition! This looks very promising. Besides the other suggestions, I'd like to add:

1. You mentioned that "Approvals show up in automation as triggers and actions", but so far I see only an action to start an approval, but no trigger containing an approval. Is that WIP? Furthermore, the trigger "Page status changed" is not aware of the three new approval status - yet...?

2. The Content Manager of a Space is also not aware of the three new statuses. For a page in "Approved" for instance, it shows "None" in the status column.

3. As already mentioned, it would be great if there would be a "quorum" option for approvers, i.e. "One of these three people as to approve the page, but not all three".

Looking forward hearing more news about this!

[Martina Guth]

Hi @Alli Shea I am still not able to install this feature, is there anything I need to do first?

Kind regards,
Martina

[Jamie Knight]

Are there any future plans to add approvals to live docs and blogs? 

Also, what about edits to existing pages - is there a way to enable a setting that requires approvals on all edited pages as well? We currently have policy documents that are updated annually, and those edits need the necessary approvals for audits. It would be great if all of that could be captured in Confluence.

[Viswanathan Ramachandran]

Great feature and bringing page approvals directly into Confluence adds much-needed governance, activity tracking, and publishing gates right where people are already collaborating.

Native Approvals is Atlassian’s answer to lightweight governance, it splits the market based on complexity. It is a clever strategic move.

[Aron Gombas _Midori_]

As approvals are implemented by automation flows, do the automation service limits apply?

If yes, how does it affect approvals in the practice (daily work)? For example, is there an upper limit for the number of pages that are under approval? Max approvals per day? And so on...

[Linda Wu]

@Josh @James O_Connor - thanks for the suggestion on the scheduled publishing! I've noted the feedback for our product team. In the meantime, we do have an existing "Scheduled" trigger and "Publish new page" action that you could build Automation workflows with. This could potentially work well with the use case you're describing.

[Linda Wu]

@Martin Stirnberg _Communardo_ - thanks for the feedback! Today Automation can start an approval, but there’s no approval-specific trigger. You're right in that Content Manager doesn’t fully reflect approval states, and quorum isn’t yet supported. An approval completes only when every selected reviewer approves. I’ve shared these requests with the relevant teams and we will look into them.

@Martina Guth - on eligible Premium or Enterprise sites, a product admin enables Approvals under Configuration → New features, then a space admin turns them on under Space settings → Status and approvals. If the site-level option is missing, please contact Atlassian Support so we can check the site’s rollout state. You can refer to the support documentation for more information.

@Jamie Knight - approvals are currently not supported on content types other than regular pages, but it's something we're exploring. Existing pages can enter a new approval cycle while the approved published version remains visible, but Require approval before publishing applies only to the first publish; it doesn’t force reapproval after every edit. I've noted the feedback on both points and we will look into next steps.

@Aron Gombas _Midori_ - native approval lifecycles aren’t Automation flow executions, so Automation limits don’t create a cap on manually started approvals or pages under approval. As for native approval limits, we’re monitoring usage during the Open Beta and evaluating appropriate caps to ensure a reliable experience. These limits aren’t finalized yet, but we’ll share updates when they’re confirmed.

[Linda Wu]

@Koloman Pfeffer - thanks for detailing your use cases. I’ve shared your feedback on dynamic approvers, adding approvers to active approvals, and the initiator restriction with the product team for consideration. Stay tuned for updates.

[__ Jimi Wikman]

Here are my opinions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYcjl311pyE

In summary:

• Instructions to activate are missing a step...
• Currently, you can only require approval on create, not edit.
• It is confusing to request approvals
• This is not really an approval function, but a way to get consensus after an update.

Very lightweight at the moment and more of an MVP than a real function, but it has great potential!