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You're looking for approval workflow software to automate the approval process, making it faster and reducing the need to chase people for sign-offs. Luckily, the many approval workflow tools on the market increase your chances of finding a great tool; however, there are so many that creating a shortlist of the best can be both time-consuming and frustrating.

In this post, I use my personal experience automating hundreds of approvals and using many different platforms to explore the market for you. Through research and personal experience, I've shortlisted the best workflow management software available, including details about each tool's features and use cases to help you easily find the best tool for you and your team.

Why Trust Our Software Reviews

We’ve been testing and reviewing approval workflow software since 2012. As project managers ourselves, we know how critical and difficult it is to make the right decision when selecting software.

We invest in deep research to help our audience make better software purchasing decisions. We’ve tested more than 2,000 tools for different project management use cases and written over 1,000 comprehensive software reviews. Learn how we stay transparent & our project management review methodology.

Compare Software Specs Side-by-Side

Below is a convenient table that helps you see all the tools we just covered side by side.

Tool Best For Trial Info Price
1
Wrike

Build approvals and check points into your workflows.

Best for approval automations

Freemium version available

From $10/user/month (min of 2 seats) Website
2
Streamwork

Streamwork lets you set up routes for approval on various creative assets.

Best for multiple approval stages

Free plan available (up to 2 users)

From $23/user/month (up to 5 users) Website
3
Hub Planner

Approve time-off requests directly from the dashboard, email notifications, and scheduler.

Best for handling team vacation requests

14-day free trial + free demo available

From $7/user/month (billed annually) Website
4
Miro

With Miro, users can create technical diagrams to represent workflows, system architectures, and many other processes.

Best for visual collaboration & innovation

30-day free trial + free plan available

From $8/user/month (billed annually) Website
5
Jotform

Jotform Enterprise allows you to build complex approval workflows using conditional logic and custom triggers.

Best for dynamic form approval

Free plan available

From $34/month (billed annually) Website
6
IntelligenceBank

Approval and feedback screens for content approvals in Intelligencebank.

Best for marketing operations

Free demo available

From $438/month (billed annually) Website
7
Filestage

Approve all the files in your project with a consistent workflow.

Best for unlimited reviewers

Free plan available

From $49/month (unlimited team members, billed annually) Website
8
Ziflow

Reduce project management effort with workflow templates.

Best for creative teams

14-day free trial + freemium plan available

From $10/user/month (billed annually) Website
9
Kissflow Workflow

Kissflow’s workflow management solution lets you create customizable workflows without any coding, and you manage them with a user-friendly interface.

Best for custom approval workflows

Free demo available

From $15/user/monthly Website
10
Birdview

Birdview PSA's activity center provides a centralized hub where users can track all project-related activities, including tasks, milestones, and communications.

Best for agencies and professional services

14-day free trial

From $27/user/month (billed annually) Website

How to Choose Approval Workflow Software

It’s easy to get bogged down in long feature lists and complex pricing structures. To help you stay focused as you work through your unique software selection process, here’s a checklist of factors to keep in mind:

FactorWhat to Consider
ScalabilityMake sure the software can handle your team’s growth, whether it’s increasing users, processes, or requests. Look for flexible licensing or tiered pricing models.
IntegrationsCheck if the software connects with your existing tools like CRMs, ERPs, or document storage systems. Integrations can streamline your workflows and save your team time.
CustomizabilityEnsure you can tailor approval processes to match your team’s unique needs, like setting custom approval stages or notifications.
Ease of UseYour team shouldn’t need extensive training. Look for intuitive interfaces and straightforward workflows to get started quickly.
BudgetConsider the total cost of the software, including subscription fees, training, and potential add-ons. Verify if it aligns with your team’s financial constraints.
Security SafeguardsConfirm the software meets your organization’s security standards, such as role-based permissions and compliance with regulations like GDPR or SOC 2.
Mobile AccessibilityCheck if the software offers a mobile-friendly interface or app, so your team can approve requests on-the-go.
Reporting FeaturesLook for robust analytics tools to track bottlenecks, approval times, and process efficiency for better decision-making.

Best Approval Workflow Software Reviews

Here’s a brief description of each approval tool to showcase each tool’s best use case and some noteworthy features.

Best for approval automations

  • Freemium version available
  • From $10/user/month (min of 2 seats)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.2/5

Wrike is a work management platform that lets you create automated approval workflows in a no-code environment.

Why I picked Wrike: You can eliminate time wasted chasing approvals with Wrike’s advanced customization capabilities and enable your team to create more high-quality work every day.

Wrike offers a user-friendly experience with advanced customization capabilities. For example, you can organize, see, and manage project timelines using Kanban boards, drag-and-drop Gantt charts, and detailed dashboards. Additionally, you have access to visual proofing, which allows your approvers to comment and interact with your team during the approval process.

Proofing is available in the Business Plus and Enterprise plans. If you are an approver, you will receive all your pending approval notifications in your Wrike Inbox, or you can add a widget to your dashboard to show approvals.

Wrike Standout Features & Integrations

Features include time tracking, project portfolio management, pre-built templates, custom request forms, interactive Gantt charts, visual proofing, workflow automations, and dashboards.

Integrations include native pre-built integrations with more than 400 popular platforms, including Microsoft, Google, and Dropbox, along with sales and marketing software from Salesforce and Marketo.

Best for multiple approval stages

  • Free plan available (up to 2 users)
  • From $23/user/month (up to 5 users)

Streamwork is a creative workflow management tool designed to simplify the review, approval, and management of creative projects. It consolidates various creative assets such as videos, images, and documents into a single platform.

Why I picked Streamwork: I like its ability to manage multiple approval stages and reviewers, ensuring that all necessary stakeholders are involved at the appropriate times. This feature is particularly beneficial for maintaining brand compliance and ensuring that all creative assets meet the required standards before final approval. Additionally, Streamwork allows for easy updates to creative files, enabling teams to pause and resume workflows

Streamwork Standout Features & Integrations

Features include real-time feedback on creative assets, shareable links, version tracking, comment prioritization, real-time status updates, campaign management, task management, and to-do workflows.

Integrations include Slack, Asana, Trello, various DAMs, and many more tools.

Best for handling team vacation requests

  • 14-day free trial + free demo available
  • From $7/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.2/5

Hub Planner is an online scheduling and resource management tool that can help businesses with planning and project management.

Why I picked Hub Planner: Its customizable approval workflow system. You can set up your own approval process and easily manage time off requests from your employees. The tool also allows employees to request time off directly through the system, which saves time and ensures that all requests are tracked in one place.

Hub Planner also has detailed reporting capabilities. You can generate custom reports on a wide range of metrics, such as resource utilization, team performance, and project profitability. This makes it easy to stay on top of your projects and make data-driven decisions.

Hub Planner Standout Features & Integrations

Features include direct approvals from the dashboard, resource management, PTO planning, timesheets, reporting, skills matching, task management, templates, drag-and-drop scheduler, project budgets, approval flows, and smart scheduler.

Integrations include DIY options via the Hub Planner API and webhooks. Additionally, you can access thousands of apps using a Zapier account.

Best for visual collaboration & innovation

  • 30-day free trial + free plan available
  • From $8/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.8/5

Miro's approval workflow software serves as a collaborative platform that aids teams in managing project workflows and approval processes. It provides a visual space where team members can track project status, customize workflow templates, and collaborate in real time. The software is designed to keep all stakeholders aligned on what requires approval and what is ready for production, thereby reducing uncertainty and improving workflow management.

Why I picked Miro: Miro aims to provide users with a single integrated workspace for large-scale collaboration, allowing for faster feedback cycles and approval workflows, visualization of complex systems, automation of tasks, and integration with popular task management tools. It offers an infinite canvas, pre-built templates, and a variety of widgets to facilitate brainstorming, planning, and collaboration.

The platform also enables both asynchronous and synchronous collaboration, with features such as mouseover collaboration, easy screen sharing, and embedded video, chat, and commenting. It additionally includes deadline reminders, the ability to comment or request additional materials, and transparent guidelines for marking approved projects. This facilitates an organized and efficient approval process, especially for remote teams, and supports agile product development across various organizational types.

Miro Standout Features & Integrations

Features include support for retrospectives, which are meetings held by teams to reflect on the process of work to continuously improve, and the Miro Assist AI tool, which helps automate mundane tasks. Miro can also be used for mind mapping, whiteboarding, planning products at scale, technical diagramming, customer journey mapping, wireframing, strategy and planning, diagramming and process mapping, product development workflows, and content and data visualization.

Integrations include Zoom, Atlassian, Slack, Google Workspace, monday.com, Slack, Asana, ClickUp, Jira, and Smartsheet.

Best for dynamic form approval

  • Free plan available
  • From $34/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.7/5

Jotform Enterprise provides a powerful, easy-to-use data collection process for businesses looking to optimize their workflow management processes. With Jotform, businesses will have access to offline forms, surveys for product feedback and reviews, collaboration tools, approvals for automated workflows, and conditional logic for a personalized customer form experience. They specialize in B2B businesses but can be adapted to various customer markets and industries.

Why I picked Jotform Enterprise: It offers a modern online form builder that allows you to organize and manage events, register volunteers, and collect donations from a single unified platform. You can choose from thousands of themes and templates to customize without any design experience or even writing a single line of code. Everything is done through the simple drag-and-drop form builder.

Account admins can leverage multiuser options with admin and user-level features for the entire team. It enables single sign-on (SSO) integration, which enables project managers and team leaders to easily manage team members/users through their existing SSO provider when necessary.

Jotform Enterprise is fully capable of automating and streamlining approval workflows for project managers and team leaders with its powerful online forms. Users can easily set up their workflow using the platform’s drag-and-drop interface. They can then track approvals through various tools, including email, mobile apps, and via built-in applications. Moreover, Jotform also has unique features like the e-signature widget, which stakeholders can use to approve forms with minimal effort.

Jotform Enterprise Standout Features & Integrations

Features include workflow automations, conditional logic, e-sign documents with automated signing orders, webhooks, API, and helpful ways to integrate feedback into your workflow.

Integrations include Box, OneDrive, Airtable, Google Drive, PayPal Business, Google Sheets, Google Calendar, Slack, HubSpot, monday.com, and other apps.

Best for marketing operations

  • Free demo available
  • From $438/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.5/5

IntelligenceBank is a digital asset management (DAM) platform that helps you manage digital assets and recently upgraded its online proofing and approvals feature.

Why I picked IntelligenceBank: With this update, it’s possible to collaborate on marketing campaigns and content reviews. As you automate your approvals, create brand checklists to make sure that the person responsible for the review knows the steps required from a compliance standpoint. Have a section you want to highlight? You can draw on top of the content so you make sure no one misses the spot you are discussing.

IntelligenceBank Standout Features & Integrations

Features include an online brand portal, creative templates, approval history, approval status list, approval time tracking, file proofing with audit trails, comments, annotations, and file management using tags.

Integrations. Intelligencebank has connectors built to integrate with Adobe Creative Cloud, Salesforce, Google Workspace, Drupal, and more.

Best for unlimited reviewers

  • Free plan available
  • From $49/month (unlimited team members, billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.7/5

Filestage is a GDPR-compliant review and approval platform used by marketing teams, agencies, and production companies around the world. Why? Probably because it takes minutes for you to set up approval workflows, whether that's manually or using one of the available templates.

Why I picked Filestage: This tool centralizes your approval workflow into a single dashboard. From there, you can see every review step, file format, version, and reviewer in your project, with status indicators to show who’s approved what. Additionally, the platform allows you to save each comment, so you can go back and check who said what.

But it’s not until you start using the platform that the time-saving tricks really reveal themselves. Tap on videos instead of writing time codes in your comments. Compare versions side by side to provide more accurate feedback. Automatically share content with your external reviewers once it’s been approved by your internal team.

Filestage Standout Features & Integrations

Features include an approval progress tracker, annotations, unlimited file sharing, feedback in context, one-click approvals, and version history.

Integrations include native connections with Slack, Microsoft Teams, Adobe Creative Cloud, and Asana – plus thousands more apps through their integration partners, like Pabbly.

You can also invite an unlimited number of reviewers and external uploaders to your account for free.

Best for creative teams

  • 14-day free trial + freemium plan available
  • From $10/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.5/5

Ziflow is a review and approval workflow solution used by creative teams everywhere. It streamlines the feedback and approval process through its support for almost any media type, rich discussion threads, and automated workflows.

Why I picked Ziflow: Instead of sorting through feedback and chasing approvals, you can use Ziflow to automate your approval process. Likewise, you can give your creative team instant visibility on each project, asset, and individual stakeholder. The platform's customizable and automated workflows, along with tracking, make sure everyone stays on task to get projects done on time.

Ziflow Standout Features & Integrations

Features include collaborative discussions, annotations, comments, version comparison, intuitive sign-off on collateral, multi-stage approvals, and approval tracking.

Integrations include Adobe Creative Suite, Dropbox, Slack, Basecamp, and more right out of the box. Also, they have an integration platform called Ziflow connect, with which you can connect it to 1000+ more apps.

Best for custom approval workflows

  • Free demo available
  • From $15/user/monthly
Visit Website
Rating: 4.3/5

Kissflow is a low-code/no-code work management platform enabling businesses to easily design and build applications and workflow processes. The workflow management module is equipped with a visual user interface, a suite of task management tools, and an extensive gallery of templates to help you start creating your custom workflows and apps.

Why I picked Kissflow: the platform's workflow and automation features are designed to boost your team's productivity and efficiency in tackling tasks and projects. It is easy to use, regardless of your coding skills, as it doesn't require you to write even a line of code to create workflows quickly. The software uses a visual form and workflow designer to help you design and build automated workflows.

Kissflow Workflow can be leveraged to streamline multiple approval steps and reduce the output and execution time, thanks to its built-in approval management system. The approval workflows can be broken down into five easy steps: design the visual form, build the workflow, set the parameters (rules and exceptions), choose the team members to be added, perform the analysis, and make adjustments when necessary.

Kissflow Standout Features & Integrations

Features include Kissflow's approval management system that creates a unified view, giving project managers access to a centralized console that contains all items that need immediate action and approval. Users can implement role-based access by defining user roles and responsibilities and granting access permissions to key actions and steps. Project managers can also design and create workflows with multiple approval steps using a no-code drag-and-drop function. In addition, Kissflow Workflow offers algorithmic task assignments, automated workflow routing, reporting capabilities, contextual collaboration, and third-party integrations.

Integrations include Google Workspace (Gmail, Google Docs, etc.), and an API is available to build additional integrations.

Best for agencies and professional services

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $27/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.2/5

Birdview PSA is a resource management software designed to help project managers streamline their approval workflows and manage their projects more efficiently. It's a comprehensive tool that combines project management, resource management, and financial management into one platform, making it easier for teams to collaborate and stay on top of their work.

Why I picked Birdview PSA: Birdview PSA is an exceptional solution for agencies and professional service organizations as it offers comprehensive project management capabilities, allowing agencies to efficiently plan, track, and deliver projects. With robust resource management tools, Birdview PSA enables organizations to effectively allocate and utilize their resources based on workload capacity or skill matching. The platform's intuitive dashboards and reporting features provide valuable insights into project performance, resource utilization, and financials.

Birdview PSA offers robust collaboration features, with a particular focus on workflow proofing and approvals. The platform facilitates seamless collaboration among team members, enabling them to share and review project assets, documents, and deliverables in a centralized workspace. Through workflow proofing, stakeholders can provide feedback, make annotations, and suggest changes directly on the documents, streamlining the review process and ensuring clear communication.

Birdview PSA Standout Features & Integrations

Features include 250+ ready-to-use dashboards and reports for project scheduling, tracking, and business intelligence. I mentioned their resource planning tools above but one particular feature I wanted to highlight is their resource loading simulation tool. You can set up trial projects with available resources and track whether your estimates are accurate before committing to your plan. You can also do resource loading by skill. Track what each team member is trained in and then pull them into projects based on their unique talents. 

Integrations include Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Project, Jira, Adobe Creative Cloud, MS Excel, Outlook, Hubspot, Salesforce, Oracle NetSuite, Gmail, Slack, Zoom, Github, Gitlab, HelpScout, HelpDocs, Olark, and other options for time tracking, design, ERP, and accounting software. You can also use their RESTful API to build additional integrations.

Other Approval Workflow Software

Here are a few more tools that didn’t make the top list. Let me know if you have any more that are worthy of mention in the comments!

  1. Ravetree

    For CRM and project approvals

  2. Admation

    For routine approvals

  3. OppolisCloud

    For Adobe Creative Cloud integration

  4. Moxo

    For workflows within client portals

  5. Tallyfy

    For experienced workflow builders

  6. Gain

    For collaborative approval workflows

  7. ClickUp

    For project management workflows

  8. Process Street

    For its drag-and-drop builder

  9. monday.com

    For approval forms and boards

  10. Smartsheet

    For external approvers

Selection Criteria for Approval Workflow Software

When selecting the best approval workflow software to include on this list, I considered common buyer needs and pain points like automating manual approval processes and ensuring compliance with organizational policies. I also used the following framework to keep my evaluation structured and fair:

Core Functionality (25% of total score)
To be considered for inclusion on this list, each solution had to fulfill these common use cases:

  • Automating approval processes
  • Providing role-based access control
  • Tracking approval histories
  • Notifying stakeholders of pending approvals
  • Offering customizable workflows

Additional Standout Features (25% of total score)
To help further narrow down the competition, I also looked for unique features, such as:

  • Built-in analytics for process optimization
  • Integration with digital signature tools
  • AI-powered approval suggestions
  • Offline approval capabilities
  • Advanced workflow visualization

Usability (10% of total score)
To get a sense of the usability of each system, I considered the following:

  • Simplified navigation and layout
  • Minimal clicks required for key actions
  • Clear workflow visualization
  • An intuitive mobile interface
  • Platform responsiveness

Onboarding (10% of total score)
To evaluate the onboarding experience for each platform, I considered the following:

  • Availability of step-by-step tutorials
  • Access to training videos and documentation
  • Presence of interactive product tours
  • Support for importing existing workflows
  • Availability of live onboarding webinars

Customer Support (10% of total score)
To assess each software provider’s customer support services, I considered the following:

  • Availability of 24/7 support
  • Access to knowledgeable support agents
  • Quality of self-service resources
  • Response time for critical issues
  • Availability of multiple communication channels

Value For Money (10% of total score)
To evaluate the value for money of each platform, I considered the following:

  • Transparency of pricing structure
  • Availability of free trials or demos
  • Inclusion of essential features in base plans
  • Cost-effectiveness of higher-tier plans
  • Pricing competitiveness within the market

Customer Reviews (10% of total score)
To get a sense of overall customer satisfaction, I considered the following when reading customer reviews:

  • Complaints about hidden fees or costs
  • Frequency of praise for usability
  • Feedback on reliability and uptime
  • Comments on customer support experiences
  • Examples of ROI achieved through the tool

In my research, I sourced countless product updates, press releases, and release logs from different approval workflow software vendors. Here are some of the emerging trends I’m keeping an eye on:

  • AI-Driven Recommendations: Tools are now offering AI to suggest approvers or flag unusual requests. This helps teams save time and spot issues faster. For example, an AI might flag expense approvals that fall outside of normal spending patterns.
  • Blockchain for Audit Trails: Some vendors are adopting blockchain to ensure tamper-proof approval records. This trend is especially useful for industries with strict compliance needs, like finance or healthcare, where secure and verifiable audit trails are essential.
  • No-Code Workflow Design: More platforms now allow users to build and modify workflows without writing code. This lowers the barrier for non-technical users and makes it easier for teams to adjust workflows to fit their needs without IT support.
  • Dynamic Approvals Based on Context: Approval paths that adjust based on conditions like urgency or budget thresholds are gaining popularity. For example, a low-budget request might require only one approval, while a high-budget one routes through multiple levels automatically.
  • Embedded Analytics: Platforms are including real-time data on approval times, bottlenecks, and user activity. Teams can use this data to identify delays and make processes more efficient. For example, a dashboard might highlight that a specific approval step consistently slows down requests.

What is Approval Workflow Software?

Approval workflow software is a tool that helps digitize, streamline, and automate your company’s approval processes. It’s used by different teams and departments to facilitate effective approval workflows for documents, decisions, and deliverables.

These cloud-based approval systems allow you to build automated approval workflows and create workflow templates for reuse. You can create documents with online proofing, digital sign off, and due dates for final approvals. Different permissions can be set for various team members, departments, or business functions.

Features of Approval Workflow Software

When selecting approval workflow software, keep an eye out for the following key features:

  • Customizable workflows: Allows you to tailor approval steps to match your organization's unique processes and requirements.
  • Role-based permissions: Ensures only authorized users can approve, view, or edit specific requests, improving security and compliance.
  • Real-time notifications: Alerts users about pending approvals or status changes to keep processes moving efficiently.
  • Audit trails: Provides a detailed log of all actions taken, offering transparency and supporting compliance needs.
  • Parallel approvals: Enables multiple approvers to review and approve requests simultaneously, reducing delays.
  • Conditional logic: Lets you create dynamic workflows that adjust based on factors like request type or value.
  • Mobile accessibility: Allows users to review and approve requests from their smartphones or tablets for on-the-go convenience.
  • Template libraries: Offers pre-built workflow templates to help you get started quickly and standardize processes.
  • Integration capabilities: Connects with other business tools like CRMs or accounting software to streamline operations.
  • Analytics and reporting: Tracks metrics like approval times and bottlenecks to help optimize workflows over time.

Benefits of Approval Workflow Software

Implementing approval workflow software provides several benefits for your team and your business. Here are a few you can look forward to:

  • Faster approvals: Automates repetitive steps and sends real-time alerts to keep processes moving quickly.
  • Improved accuracy: Reduces errors by ensuring all requests follow the same predefined steps and rules.
  • Better transparency: Tracks every action with detailed audit logs, so you always know who approved what and when.
  • Increased compliance: Helps your team stick to company policies by enforcing rules and creating clear approval trails.
  • Enhanced collaboration: Makes it easier for teams to work together by providing a shared platform for reviewing and approving requests.
  • Cost savings: Cuts down on manual work and delays, saving time and reducing operational costs.
  • Scalability: Adapts to your growing business by handling more users, requests, or processes as needed.

Costs & Pricing of Approval Workflow Software

Selecting approval workflow software requires an understanding of the various pricing models and plans available. Costs vary based on features, team size, add-ons, and more. The table below summarizes common plans, their average prices, and typical features included in approval workflow software solutions:

Plan Comparison Table for Approval Workflow Software

Plan TypeAverage PriceCommon Features
Free Plan$0Basic workflow automation, limited users, email notifications, and simple reporting.
Personal Plan$5-$25/user/monthCustomizable workflows, role-based permissions, mobile access, and basic integrations.
Business Plan$30-$70/user/monthAdvanced workflow customization, audit trails, conditional logic, and analytics tools.
Enterprise Plan$100-$200/user/monthDynamic workflows, enterprise-grade security, API access, and dedicated support.

Approval Workflow Software Frequently Asked Questions

Find answers to common questions other people ask about this topic.

What is an approval workflow?

Also referred to as the approval process, an approval workflow is the series of steps that a unit of work must go through to get formally approved. Some approval workflows will relate to documents, such as invoice approvals or purchase order approvals. Other approval workflows will be decision-based, such as with procurement. Approval management software helps project managers automate those processes by defining the steps and approvers required in a specific scenario.

What are the key features of approval workflow software?

Here are some of the top features to look for in an approval workflow software:

  1. Drag-and-drop interface: A friendly, intuitive interface to build workflows with conditional logic and routing.
  2. Automation: Approval workflow automation, such as sending automated Slack or email notifications.
  3. Real-time dashboards: You should be able to track approvals through each stage of the process.
  4. Document approval: Many platforms can handle documents like contracts, invoices, or purchase orders.
  5. Form builder: Creating online forms to collect information needed to make an approval decision.

What is approval workflow software used for?

Approval workflow software is just one use case for workflow automation software, and is specifically used for the ‘good-to-go’ sign from different stakeholders. Therefore, it includes simple and multi-level approvals that can include documents, creative collateral, or anything that requires a manager or client to approve.

Examples of approvals that can be automated with this software are:

  • Marketing collateral for social media campaigns
  • Approvals on sales expense accounts
  • Purchasing department buying items over a certain amount
  • Legal documents that require perusal from senior members of the firm

How do approvals impact project execution?

Brian Tracey, a recognized Canadian-American self-development author, once said “Every minute you spend in planning saves ten minutes in execution”. I believe this quote is accurate in the context of approval workflows in project management.

As project managers, we are responsible for a plethora of activities. From task management, resource planning, scopes of work, project plans, and time management to approvals, rapport building, and stakeholder management.

Although we know that schedule, scope and cost are the three major project constraints, I would consider approvals as a close fourth. Even though approvals might not be the first activity we think of, it’s definitely one that puts a strain on our timelines. Sometimes we have tasks within our plan that have dependencies on stakeholders rather than other tasks. If no approval is given, we reach an impasse and risk delaying the project.

What's Next?

Most of the software on this list requires you to have previous experience with workflows. If you are just starting, check out our Guide to Workflow Diagrams for PMs where you can learn the basics to start building great processes and even better automations! Otherwise, you can dig deeper into Your Guide To Workflow Automation & The 10 Best Software Tools and how it can be used to free up employees' time.

Related List of Tools:

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Galen Low
By Galen Low

Galen is a digital project manager with over 10 years of experience shaping and delivering human-centered digital transformation initiatives in government, healthcare, transit, and retail. He is a digital project management nerd, a cultivator of highly collaborative teams, and an impulsive sharer of knowledge. He's also the co-founder of The Digital Project Manager and host of The DPM Podcast.