Space settings

Keep this page open while you configure a space. Space administrators find these settings under space settings, Capable Approval, across six tabs: Teams, Automation, Watchers, Overrides, Security and Banner. Nothing applies until you press Save.

Pages that were already open may not show a change straight away. Reload the page to pick it up.

#Teams

Each team you enable here has its own settings in this space. Creating the teams themselves is covered in Manage approval teams.

Setting	Default	Notes
Enable approval team	OFF	A team can't be used in this space at all until this is on.
Minimum approvers	The team size	Anything from 1 to the team size.
Minimum rejections	1	Anything from 1 to the team size.
Expiry	No expiry	1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, a custom interval or an exact date. See Expiry and re-approval.
Publish on approval	OFF	Hands the page to Capable Publishing once it's approved. See Publishing.

#The space team

Every space comes with a built-in team of its own, listed as Space team. It holds up to 16 people, has the same settings as any other team, and is the default choice for automation. If one group of reviewers is all this space needs, use it and skip creating anything.

#Automation

The full walkthrough lives in Automatic approvals. Here are the defaults at a glance.

Setting	Default
Raise an approval on page creation	OFF
Raise an approval on page update (only if the page has no approval yet)	OFF
Default team	Space team
Label routing, on creation and on update	Off, and the two switch independently
Label rules	None, up to 50

Automation tab with page creation and page update approvals turned on and Space team selected as the default team — Both triggers switched on, with Space team as the default team. Out of the box, both switches are off.

Label rules are checked from the top of the list down, and the first match wins. They look at the page's labels at the moment the approval is raised. If you've also switched on the default team triggers above, a page with no matching label goes to the default team. If not, no approval is raised for that page.

Route approvals by page label settings with page creation on, page update off, and label mappings to approval teams — Each label mapping pairs a label with an approval team. Use Add label mapping for another rule, or the cross to remove one.

#Watchers

People who hear about every approval outcome in the space, whether or not they're approvers. The list starts empty and holds up to 50 people.

Watchers hear about outcomes only, never about a request being raised or an approver being added. A watcher who can't read the page gets nothing at all. See Notifications.

Watchers tab with an Add users button and the message No watchers configured yet — The Watchers tab as it starts: empty. Use Add users to build the list.

#Overrides

Settings applied to every approval in the space, whatever an individual chose on the page.

Setting	Default	What it does
Approval expiry	OFF	Forces an expiry period on every approval in the space.
Publish on approval	OFF	Wins over the team setting and over the individual approval. If Capable Publishing is set to preserve the page hierarchy, publish parent pages before their children, or use folders.

Custom expiry intervals accept days, weeks, months or years, with a minimum of 7 days or 1 of any larger unit.

Overrides tab with Approval expiry on and set to 3 Months, and Publish on approval switched on — Both overrides switched on, with a 3-month expiry. Out of the box, both are off.

#Security

Who can manage approvals in this space, and how approvers prove it's really them.

Setting	Default	What it does
Allow users to edit approvals	ON	Lets people change an approval after it's been sent, which is handy when you're working with teams. Turn it off and only space administrators can raise or change approvals here.
Restrict who can edit approvals	OFF	Limits raising and editing approvals to the users and groups you name. See Who can do what.
Require 2FA to approve	OFF	Approvers enter a code from their authenticator app before they can sign off. See Sign approvals with a code.

Codes are 6 digits and change every 30 seconds. 2FA is set per space, and there's no site-wide switch.

Security tab with Allow users to edit approvals on, and Restrict who can edit approvals and Require 2FA to approve off — The Security tab at its defaults: users can edit approvals, editing isn't limited to named people, and no code is needed to approve.

Shows a coloured banner above pages that have an approval, telling readers whether each one is approved, in review, rejected or expired. Choose to follow the site setting (the default), always show it in this space, or always hide it here. The site-wide switch is in Site settings.

Status banner options, Follow the site setting selected, Show in this space, and Hide in this space — Follow the site setting is the default. Show in this space and Hide in this space take priority over the site setting.

#A few things that catch people out

A team that exists but isn't enabled here can't be used in this space, and that includes automation.
Editing a page that already has an approval doesn't raise a new one, even with the page update trigger switched on.
Overrides beat both the team and the page. When a setting isn't doing what somebody expected, check them first.
If a change doesn't seem to have landed, check you pressed Save, then reload the page. That's often the whole fix.
Requiring 2FA is per space. Turning it on in one space does nothing to the others.

Site settings

The settings that apply everywhere.

Manage approval teams

Creating teams and enabling them here.

Automatic approvals

The Automation tab, explained properly.

Set up a space for approvals

Setting a space up from scratch.

Notifications

Who the Watchers list actually reaches.

Who can do what

What the Security tab restricts.

Every switch in one place, with the default next to it.