Approve content before it goes live

Oct 14, 2026
Knowledge

Procedure Steps

Article updated: June 26, 2026

Approve content before it goes live

An approval process helps ensure you publish mistake-free, polished, on-brand content. Once your admin has set up an approval process, and you've been asked to approve a post or message, you can go to Perch, and then select Approvals to view, edit, approve, and reject content.

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Authors and Inbox agents get a notification when someone approves or rejects their content. Learn how to customize your notifications.

Plans: Advanced, Business, and Enterprise

If you're an administrator, and you want to set up an approval process, see Set up an approval process. Members with Limited, Responder or certain custom social network permissions must have approval to publish posts, or comment and reply in Inbox.

You must have one of the following roles to approve content:

Be an organization Super Admin or Admin.
Have Team Admin or Unlimited permissions for your team.
Have Unlimited, Advanced, Editor, or the custom permission Approve messages for the social account.

Understanding the approval sequence

If your organization uses multiple approval steps, the post will not move to the next step in the sequence until the previous approval is granted. Approvals are processed in the following order:

Proofpoint (if enabled): Automated compliance pre-screening.
One-time approver: A specific person selected by the post creator.
Custom approval process: Team or department-level approvals set by your admin.

All required approvals must be completed before the post's scheduled time. If any stage is still pending when the scheduled time arrives, the post will fail to publish and move to the Expired queue.

Approve, edit, or reject content

View, edit, approve, and reject content and messages.

Go to Perch, select your organization, and then select Approvals.
Select to view content with approvals that are Assigned to you, Created by you, Rejected, or Expired. You can use the options at the top of the page to filter your approvals by post type, social account, or by date.
- Rejected - Content that was rejected. Includes notes from the approver. Authors can edit the content and resend it for approval. Content rejected by or waiting for approval from Proofpoint also appears here.
- Expired - Content that was not approved before its scheduled publish time or was pending approval for longer than 90 days. The author (or an organization member with permissions) can edit or delete the content.
Select the content to view it. To open a conversation and its details in Inbox, select Open in Inbox. To edit the content before you approve it, open a post, and then select Edit from the top of the page. You cannot edit private messages, comments, and replies (you can only approve or reject them).
Select Approve or Reject.

Go to Plan, select your organization, and then select Approvals.
Select to view content with approvals that are Assigned to you, Created by you, Rejected, or Expired. You can use the options at the top of the page to filter your approvals by post type, social account, or by date.
- Rejected - Content that was rejected. Includes notes from the approver. Authors can edit the content and resend it for approval. Content rejected by or waiting for approval from Proofpoint also appears here.
- Expired - Content that was not approved before its scheduled publish time or was pending approval for longer than 90 days. The author (or an organization member with permissions) can edit or delete the content.
Select the content to view it. To open a conversation and its details in Inbox, select Open in Inbox. To edit the content before you approve it, open a post, and then select Edit from the top of the page. You cannot edit private messages, comments, and replies (you can only approve or reject them).
Select Approve or Reject.

Unless a second or third approval is part of your process, approved content publishes (or gets scheduled) right away. If you have a second approver, they receive the approval request after the first approves the content. Likewise, the third approver receives an approval request after the second has approved the content.

Tip: Approve posts at least 5 minutes (videos 15 minutes) before they are scheduled to publish. Otherwise, you'll have to wait until they appear in the Expired queue.

View approval history for posts

Approval history tracks who sends, edits, and approves posts.

Go to Perch, select your organization, and then select Approvals.
Select the content, and then select View approval history.

Go to Plan, select your organization, and then select Approvals.
Select the content, and then select View approval history.

View approval history for messages in Inbox

Approval history for comments, replies, and private messages is shown in conversations in Inbox. To view approval history, go to Nest, and then open a conversation with messages that require approval. You can see the following statuses:

Note: Statuses stay visible in conversations, even if other messages are approved. At this time, approvals are not available for WhatsApp messages and in-app chats.

Content rejected - The message was rejected from the approver.
Content canceled - The message was canceled by the approver.
Comment pending approval - The message has been sent for approval.

Example of a message showing approval history.

Note: Team members can request approval from other team members when creating a post. If a team member requests approval from someone who is a designated approver in your custom approval flow, Hootsuite will skip the approver the second time, to avoid duplicate reviews. However, the skipped review will not be reflected in the approval history.

Find content waiting for approval in your content calendar. You can filter scheduled content by approval status using the filter on the top left. You should note the following about approval status:

Rejected - Content that was rejected. Includes notes from the approver. Authors can edit the content and resend it for approval. Content rejected by or waiting for approval from Proofpoint also appears here.
Expired Approvals - Content that was not approved before its scheduled publish time or was pending approval for longer than 90 days. The author (or an organization member with permissions) can edit or delete the content.

Approve, edit, or reject content

View, edit, approve, and reject content in your content calendar.

Go to Perch, and the select Calendar.
In the Calendar view, select Filters.
Select Post status and choose Pending approval, then select Approver and select your name. , and select Post status, the post status filter, choose Require my approval, and then select Apply.
Select the content.
Select Approve or Reject. Select More in the top right to make edits before approving the content.

Go to Plan.
Select the post status filter, choose Require my approval, and then select Done.
Select the content.
Select Approve or Reject. Select More in the top right to make edits before approving the content.

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Approve content before it goes live

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