Approver Groups Overview

Purpose

Approver Groups let organizations assign draw approvals to a group of users instead of a single named individual. Any active member of an assigned group can satisfy the approval requirement, so a draw no longer stalls when one person is out of office.

Group membership is maintained in one place and applies to every workflow that references the group. When someone changes roles or leaves the organization, an administrator updates the group once rather than reassigning approvers project by project.

Approver Groups also add the controls needed for segregation of duties: a configurable number of unique approvers per step, the ability to prevent a submitter from approving their own draw, and an approval record that is preserved rather than deleted.

Key Features

1. Group-based approval: Any active member of the assigned approver group can complete the approval. The requirement is satisfied by the group, not by a specific person.

2. Configurable required approvals: Each workflow step sets how many unique group members must approve. Setting the count to 2 or more enforces dual control (maker-checker), and the same user cannot approve twice.

3. Self-approval prevention: A workflow-level setting excludes the draw submitter from the eligible approvers for that draw.

4. Centralized membership: Groups are created and maintained in Organization Settings and reused across workflows, so membership changes apply everywhere at once.

5. Waive instead of delete: A permissioned user can waive an approval requirement so it no longer blocks the draw. The requirement and its history are preserved, with a mandatory reason, actor, and timestamp recorded.

6. Full traceability: The Approvals tab and the Draw Ticket show the required approver group, the individual who approved, and the timestamp, along with any waive and its reason.

7. Funding hard stop: A draw cannot advance to Funded while any approval requirement is still pending.

8. Group notifications: When a requirement is created, all active members are notified in-app and by email that any of them can complete it. The pending alert clears once the requirement is satisfied.

Target Users

• Organization administrators and operations managers — create approver groups and maintain membership.

• Workflow administrators — add approver groups to workflow transitions and set the required number of approvals.

• Approver group members — review and approve draws assigned to their group, whether or not they were personally named.

• Draw submitters — submit draws and, where the workflow blocks self-approval, are excluded from approving their own.

How It Works

Setting up group-based approval takes two configuration steps — creating the group, then referencing it from a workflow transition. Approvers then act on the draw from the Approvals tab.

Step 1: Create an approver group

1. Go to Organization Settings → Customization → Approvals.

2. Select the Groups tab. Existing groups are listed with their Name, Description, Members, and the date they were last updated.

3. Select New Approver Group.

   

4. Complete the Create Approver Group panel:

   • Name (required) — the group name that appears in workflow configuration and on the draw.

   • Description — optional context describing what the group is responsible for.

   • Members (required) — search by name or email and select each user who should be able to approve on behalf of the group.

5. Select Save.

Groups can be edited or deleted later from the row actions on the Groups list.

Step 2: Add the group to a workflow transition

1. Go to Organization Settings → Customization → Workflows and open the workflow you want to change.

2. Select the transition you want the approval to apply to — for example, the transition from Borrower Submission to Pending.

3. From the Transition Builder panel, drag the Add Approvals action into the transition.

4. Set Approver type to Approver Group. (The alternative, Stakeholder, is the existing behavior of assigning an individual stakeholder type.)

5. Search for and select the Approver Group. The panel confirms the group's member count and names below the field.

6. Under Workflow-specific settings, set Required approvals — how many unique members of the group must approve at this step.

7. Set Prevent requester / submitter from approving own draw as needed. When enabled, the draw submitter is excluded from eligible approvers.

8. Select Save Changes, then publish the workflow.

Note:

When Required approvals is set to 2 or more, the panel displays a dual control confirmation: two distinct members of the group must approve, and the same user cannot approve twice.

Step 3: Approve the draw

Once the draw reaches the configured step, the approval requirement appears on the draw's Approvals tab under Draw Management. Any active member of the group can complete it.

1. Open the draw and select the Approvals tab. Each pending requirement lists the approver group under Required Approver.

2. Select Approve Draw. The Approve Draw Request dialog opens, showing the Total Draw Amount, the Retainage Advance Amount, the Disbursement Amount, and a link to the Draw Ticket.

3. Review the details and select Approve Draw to confirm, or Cancel to close without approving.

The approval is recorded against the group requirement. The row moves to Completed and shows the individual who approved, along with the date and time.

The Approvals tab shows the following columns:

The following actions are available from the tab:

• Approve Draw — records the current user's approval against the pending requirement.

• New Approval — adds an additional approval requirement to the draw.

• Re-notify — re-sends the pending approval notification to the group. This is unavailable on requirements that are already complete.

• Waive — opens the Waive approver requirement dialog, which requires a reason before the requirement can be waived. The requirement is marked Waived so it no longer blocks the draw, and the record is preserved.

Step 4: Completion and funding

When the required number of unique approvals is reached, the requirement moves to Completed. Individual pending rows are cleared so no stale approvals remain for the rest of the group.

A draw cannot transition to Funded while any approval requirement is unresolved. Every requirement must be either Completed or Waived before funding proceeds, and a blocked attempt explains why.

Step 5: Waive an approval requirement

Where an approval cannot be obtained, a user with the Remove approvals permission can waive the requirement rather than delete it. Selecting the waive action opens the Waive approver requirement dialog. Enter a reason in the Enter a reason for waiving this approval requirement field — the reason is mandatory and the requirement cannot be waived without it. The actor and timestamp are recorded to the Draw Ticket audit trail along with the reason, which appears in the Reason Waived column on the Approvals tab.

Waived is a distinct status from Completed everywhere the approval appears. A waived requirement can be reopened as long as the draw has not yet transitioned to the next phase; reopening is also recorded in the audit trail. Waive is never available to the draw submitter.

Benefits

• Coverage without manual reassignment: A draw keeps moving when an approver is out of office, because any active group member can complete the approval.

• Less maintenance: Membership is updated once in Organization Settings instead of project by project when someone changes roles or leaves.

• Enforced segregation of duties: Dual control, distinct approvers, and self-approval prevention are enforced by the workflow rather than by process.

• Audit-ready records: Approvals are preserved, never destroyed, and show both the responsible group and the individual who acted, with timestamps.

• Cleaner approval queues: Once a requirement is satisfied, pending items clear for the rest of the group instead of lingering as obsolete tasks.

• Funding cannot bypass approval: The workflow blocks a draw from reaching Funded while any approval remains outstanding.

Best Practices

• Keep at least two active members in every group. A group with a single active member reintroduces the bottleneck that Approver Groups is designed to remove. Built blocks removal of the last active member while the group is used in an active workflow.

• Match the required approval count to the risk of the step. Use one approval for routine review steps and two or more where dual control is required.

• Enable self-approval prevention where segregation of duties matters. The setting applies to the whole workflow, not to an individual draw, so review existing workflows before turning it on.

• Write a meaningful waive reason. The reason is what an auditor reads later; record why the approval was not obtained, not just that it was skipped.

• Use the Description field. A short description of what the group is responsible for makes the right group easy to pick when configuring a workflow.

• Maintain groups centrally. Treat the Groups list as the single source of truth for who can approve, rather than adjusting approvers on individual projects.