Manual Ticket Approval
Adds a real approval step to any ticket on demand, with tiers, strategies, reminders, and a timeout, and writes the decision back to the ticket.
- Started manually by an admin on any ticket
- Sends the approval request to named approvers or ordered tiers
- Supports any, all, and fallback approval strategies
- Nudges approvers on a configurable reminder schedule
- Times out after a configurable window, 48 hours by default
- Writes the decision back onto the ticket automatically
What Manual Ticket Approval does
Manual Ticket Approval is the approval step for everything that does not have one. An admin adds it to any ticket, and the agent sends a real approval request - to named approvers or through ordered tiers, using any, all, or fallback strategy - with its own title and message, reminder nudges, and a timeout. The response is written back onto the ticket, so the decision lives with the request rather than in a chat thread. It exists because no catalogue of pre-built workflows covers every case where someone needs a documented yes.
Who Manual Ticket Approval is for
Service desk admins and team leads who need a documented approval on a request that no existing automated workflow covers.
Purpose-built workflows have approval baked in. Everything else does not, so approvals for the unusual request happen in chat: someone asks a manager, gets a thumbs-up, and pastes a screenshot into the ticket if they remember. There is no reminder if the approver is away, no defined escalation, no timeout, and afterwards no clean answer to who approved this and when.
How Manual Ticket Approval works
An admin manually adds approvers to an existing ticket. The workflow ships disabled and must be turned on.
- Send the approval request
Delivers the request to the approvers or the ordered tiers supplied, using the chosen strategy, with a title and message that can be set per request and defaults supplied when they are not.
- Remind and wait
Nudges approvers on the configured reminder intervals and waits out the timeout window - 48 hours unless overridden.
- Record the decision on the ticket
Writes the response back onto the ticket as part of the same step, so the approval and the request stay together.
- Escalate on failure
If the approval cannot be completed, the ticket is reopened, unassigned, and annotated internally with the reason, so it lands back with a human rather than disappearing.
A documented approval attached to any ticket, chased on a schedule, bounded by a timeout, with the decision recorded where the request lives.
Capabilities
- Works on any ticket - Attaches an approval step to a ticket on demand, rather than requiring a purpose-built workflow.
- Ordered approval tiers - Requests can run through tiers in sequence, or go to a single list of approvers as a fallback.
- Any, all, or fallback strategy - Choose whether one approver is enough, everyone must respond, or the request falls through in order. Defaults to any.
- Nudge reminders - Reminder intervals are configurable per request, so a pending approval is chased without anyone doing it manually.
- Bounded by a timeout - Every request has a deadline - 48 hours by default - so approvals do not hang indefinitely.
- Custom title and message - The approval notification carries the wording you supply, with sensible defaults when you do not.
- Decision written to the ticket - The response updates the ticket automatically, keeping the audit trail in one place.
- Escalation on failure - A failed approval reopens and unassigns the ticket with an internal note, so it returns to a human.
Main use cases
A one-off request that needs a documented yes - An employee asks for something no workflow covers - an exception, an unusual purchase, a non-standard configuration. The admin attaches an approval, the right person decides, and the answer is recorded on the ticket instead of in a chat thread.
Approval that survives someone being away - The first approver is on leave. Nudges chase them, the tier structure moves the request on, and the timeout stops it from sitting open forever - none of which happens when approval is a direct message.
Making an exception auditable - A policy exception is granted. Because the approval ran through the agent, who asked, who approved, and when are all on the ticket when a reviewer comes looking.
Integrations
| Integration | Role in the agent flow |
|---|---|
| Harmony Service Desk | The ticket the approval is attached to, and where the decision is written back |
| Your connected identity provider (e.g. Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, Google Workspace) | Resolves the requester and the approvers named on the request |
| Harmony Notifications | Delivers the approval request and its reminders through each approver's preferred channel: Slack, Teams, or email |
FAQ
When no workflow covers the request. Application access, group membership, and the rest have approval built in. This is for everything else - exceptions, unusual asks, one-off decisions - where you still want a documented approval rather than a chat message.
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