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!

[Cadence Hsu]

Hi @Koloman Pfeffer @Gary Spross @zoltanersek _outpostlabs_dev_ - Thanks for sharing your feedback! I’m a PM on the Confluence team focused on approvals and automations. I'd love to better understand your workflow and how you'd want these features to work together for you. If you’re open to it, here’s a link to grab some time that works for you.

[__ Jimi Wikman]

Can someone confirm what permissions you need to be able to approve things? Is it tied to edit function or a new permission?

[__ Jimi Wikman]

"You need permission to edit a page to request or respond to an approval."

I would reconsider this and add approval as its own permission in the future. I often want to get approval, but I don't want everyone to have edit rights.

[Aron Gombas _Midori_]

Is the "approval information", including the approval status, approvers, etc., exposed for Forge apps in any way? I could see use cases to address by Marketplace apps. 

(REST API, content properties, dedicated Forge modules, etc.) 

[Cristian Quiroz]

This is exactly what my team needed! We've been handling approvals with third-party add-ons, but having this natively in Confluence is the way to go. Thanks for sharing! 🙌

[Linda Wu]

@__ Jimi Wikman - yes it looks like you found it, but just to confirm today you do need permission to edit the page to request or respond to an approval. Adding an approvals specific permission is a good governance use case that I've passed along to the product team.

@Aron Gombas _Midori_ - we are not yet exposing this information to Force apps. This has been something we have been exploring, but will share more information when more concrete plans become available!

[Karthick M]

Good to see this feature is coming up! Our Confluence has been rolled out with this beta feature. Will there be a feature difference between Confluence Premium and Enterprise?

[Martina Guth]

Hi @Alli Shea ,

Today at least I was able to test a little the new feature. What are my impressions?

1. To have a possibility to gain approvals is really great. However by simply publishing the page, the approval request gets lost, so this is a high potential for failures.
2. As the approver I would like to have a button to directly reject and give feedback. If you think of types of content, not only a rework might be the way to get approval, sometimes it is simply not an option to approve and then you want to reject.
3. If a change is made on the page after requested changes, the approver doesn´t get any information, that changes have been made and there is no direct comment section. The person who reworks will automatically push the publish button.
4. If an approver opens the page to review, why can´t he directly click on approval or request changes? It is a second click to respond.
5. Please have a look at the sent mails e.g. that the approval was given. At least on my account they don´t look very nice, but I am not able to send you a screenshot right here.

All in all I like the opportunity to work with approvals very much and see a lot of benefits and use cases. Thanks for working on it.
Martina

[Aron Gombas _Midori_]

@Linda Wu 

Can you work with approvals in CQL queries?

For example, search for pages by approval status, by the approver and such.

[Linda Wu]

@Martina Guth - thanks for the detailed feedback! I'm interested in learning more about the second use case. Today the approval flow requires using the Respond panel which is where approvers can choose Approve or Request changes and then add a comment. In this case you Request changes is essentially a "rejection."

Currently Require approval before publishing applies to new pages, but we are exploring extending this configuration. I’ve also passed along your feedback on notifications, direct reject, reviewer and changes requested notifications, email formatting, and reducing extra clicks.

[Linda Wu]

@Aron Gombas _Midori_ - great question. Though CQL support for approval status isn't yet available, it is on our roadmap to add this. Updates will be provided when they become available - stay tuned!

[Linda Wu]

@Karthick M - thanks for the note! Currently there is no difference planned, and Confluence Enterprise includes the same feature set as Confluence Premium. However, the Approvals feature itself will remain gated to Confluence Premium and higher.

[Josue Paniagua Varela]

Hi team, thank you for the work on Confluence Approvals, this feature has already been valuable for our workflows. I wanted to share a requirement from our team that may be relevant as this moves forward:

Currently, Confluence Approvals sends a single reminder notification the day before the due date. While this works well for most standard workflows, it may not be sufficient for time-sensitive approvals where a single reminder could be missed or overlooked.

Feature Request: Allow recurring reminder notifications to be sent to approvers at configurable intervals (e.g., daily, every X days) until the approval is completed or the due date is reached.

Use case: Teams managing compliance, change management, and operational approvals need assurance that approvers are actively notified until action is taken.

Happy to provide more context if helpful. Thanks again for the open beta and for keeping the community involved!