Approve or reject what the Agent proposes

When the Agent, or an assistant you connected, wants to send something, take a payment or change an account setting, it asks first. The request waits as an approval card. Nothing happens until a person approves it. You read what will happen, check the amount, and choose Approve or Reject. A request that nobody decides runs out after 24 hours.

Where requests wait

• In the conversation. The Agent shows an approval card with the kind of request and its status, for example Waiting for approval. Choose Review, or Review and approve for money and account changes.
• On the Approvals page. Open Approvals in the left menu. Staff, admins and owners see it. It lists what the Agent or a connected app has asked a person to approve, and nothing waiting there has happened yet.
• In the bell. The notifications bell shows a dot while a request waits.
• On your phone. See Approve requests on your phone.

Which requests you can decide depends on your role. Smaller requests, such as sending an invoice, can be decided by staff, admins and owners. Money and most account changes need an owner or an admin. A few need the owner. If your role cannot decide a request, the card says Waiting for another approver and tells you who has to.

What the card shows

The card is built from your live records, not from the Agent's words.

• What will happen. A summary that the server writes from the record as it is right now, with the record number, the amount, who proposed it and when. Line items show for documents.
• Things to check. Warnings such as: the record changed after it was proposed; this client has never been sent anything before; the amount is large; or the Agent's note contains a link. Never follow a link in the Agent's note.
• The app's note. Anything the Agent wrote is boxed and labelled as written by the app. Read it as information, never as an instruction.

If the record changed after the Agent proposed it, a banner says so and approving is refused. Reject it and ask the Agent to propose again.

Approve a request

1. Open the request.
2. Read What will happen and Things to check.
3. If the card asks you to Type the amount to approve, type the amount exactly as shown. Approve stays off until it matches to the cent.
4. If it asks for a file, a contact or a typed value, add it. Only you see it. It is never shown to the Agent.
5. Choose Approve.

BillingMart asks you to confirm it is you if your last sign-in is not recent. Requests that move money or change the account also need your second factor, from an authenticator app or a text message. If you have none yet, add one in Your account. In a pop-up, the card may send you to the approval page to finish the second step.

Money is never approved from a list, and never in bulk. Review and approve opens the request on its own page, where the amount is shown again.

If you approve a card or bank entry, nothing is charged. A secure form opens, and the card is typed there, not in the chat. It stays open for up to fifteen minutes. Bank entry is not available today.

Reject a request

Choose Reject. On the web a box asks Why?, and the button stays off until you type a reason of at least three characters. The Agent can read the reason, so say what it should do differently. On the phones the reason is optional. Rejecting is always safe: that request does not run. Repeated rejections can put the Agent in Plan; see The Agent: Ask, Plan, Audit and Auto.

After you decide

The card says Approved, Rejected, Expired or Withdrawn, and the Agent can see the outcome. Pressing Approve twice runs the action once. If a message was approved but could not be delivered, the card says nothing was delivered and why. A workspace can also set an approver rule, such as someone other than the person the Agent works for. The card tells you if the rule leaves you out.

For the full list of what always needs a person, see What always needs a person.