# Overview

Most teams already have an approval process. It just lives in email threads, meeting notes and someone's memory. Somebody asks four people to review a page, three reply, one forgets, the page gets edited two weeks later, and nobody can say for certain whether the version people are reading now is the version anyone actually agreed to.

Capable Approval puts that process on the page itself, where the work already is.

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## What you get

[No more chasingAsk people once. They get an email and a Slack message, and you can see who has replied without asking anyone.](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/request-an-approval.html)

[Sign-off that sticksEdit the page and the approval resets automatically, so nothing stays approved after it changes.](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/how-approvals-work.html)

[Proof when you need itEvery answer, comment and timestamp is kept. When an auditor asks who approved what, you can show them.](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/what-is-recorded.html)

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## Problems it solves

| **If this sounds familiar**                             | **Here is what to do**                                                                                                                                                                                                      |
| ------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| I never know who still owes me a review.                | Ask everyone at once and watch the count go up under the page title. See [Request an approval](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/request-an-approval.html). |
| We need three of the five to sign off, not all five.    | Set the number you need. The others still get notified. See [Request an approval](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/request-an-approval.html).              |
| Someone edited the policy after it was approved.        | Nothing to do. The approval resets itself on every edit. See [How approvals work](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/how-approvals-work.html).               |
| Our procedures are three years old and nobody noticed.  | Set them to come back for review every six months. See [Expiry and re-approval](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/expiry-and-re-approval.html).             |
| I am picking the same five reviewers every single time. | Make them a team and pick them in one click. See [Teams and assignment](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/teams-and-assignment.html).                       |
| The auditor wants evidence, not screenshots.            | Export the full history. See [What is recorded](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/what-is-recorded.html).                                                   |

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## Who it is for

Anyone who needs a page to be agreed before it counts. In practice that is quality and compliance teams working to a standard, HR and legal teams publishing policy, and engineering teams who want a design signed off before it gets built.

If you are working to **SOC 2**, **ISO 9001**, **ISO 27001** or **FDA 21 CFR Part 11**, see [Compliance](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/compliance.html) for exactly which requirements Capable covers and which it does not.

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## Read next

[How approvals workThe five minute explanation of what happens after you hit send, so nothing about approvals surprises you later.](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/how-approvals-work.html)[Approval statuses explainedWhat every label on an approval actually means, including the two that are not statuses at all.](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/approval-statuses-explained.html)[Who can do whatWhich Confluence permission each approval action needs, and the two extra restrictions a space can add.](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/who-can-do-what.html)[ComplianceWhat Capable Approval gives you toward SOC 2, ISO 9001, ISO 27001 and 21 CFR Part 11, and what it does not.](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/compliance.html)

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_Everything above, in about twenty minutes of setup._