Client Approval Workflow in Atarim

One button in the collaborate bar turns “looks good to me” into a dated, recorded sign-off your whole team can see.

Atarim team Updated 30 Jul 2026 · 9 min read

Client Collaboration

Atarim workflow approval dialog with discovery steps and the approve and deploy action

Before you start

Relevant for

Agencies who need a recorded sign-off from a client before a page goes live, and anyone tired of chasing approval across email threads.

Required knowledge

Familiarity with opening a project in the collaborate view and inviting a client or guest to it.

Tools & resources needed

A project with at least one page.
A client or guest invited to it.
A plan that includes Page Approvals for your own team’s use of the control.

Approval in Atarim is a status on a page rather than a separate approvals queue. Someone opens the page in the collaborate view, sets its status from the bottom bar, and that choice is recorded with a name and a timestamp. When the status reaches Approved, Atarim emails everyone set to be notified on the project.

Approval lives on the page itself, not in a separate approvals screen.

The useful part is that clients get a deliberately simplified version of the same control. Where your team sees four statuses, a guest sees two plain-English choices — which is the difference between a client who signs off and a client who asks what “needs review” means.

The Four Page Statuses

Every page carries one status at a time. Three of them are working states; only the last one triggers anything.

Status	Means	Visual cue
No Status	Nothing has been set yet. This is the starting state.	Plain control, no highlight.
In Progress	Work is underway on this page.	Orange border.
Needs Review	Ready for someone to look at.	Gold border.
Approved	Signed off. Sends the approval email.	Green fill.

Only Approved sends an email

Or writes an approval record. Moving a page to In Progress or Needs Review updates the status and nothing else, so you can use those two freely without notifying anyone.

Where the Control Lives

The control sits in the bottom bar of the collaborate view, on the page it applies to. There is no central approvals screen — you approve a page while looking at it.

Open the project you want to work in.

Open the page in the collaborate view.

Find the status control in the bottom bar. It is labelled Page Status before anything is set, and shows the current status once one is. Its tooltip reads Set page status for this design.

The Page Status control in the collaborate bottom bar in Atarim — The status control sits in the collaborate bottom bar, labelled Page Status before anything is set

The control is desktop only

The status control is hidden on small screens. If you or your client cannot find it, check you are on a desktop browser rather than a phone before assuming a permission problem. Learn More About Inviting Clients And Guests

What Your Client Sees

Guests get a simplified two-option version of the control, worded as plain statements rather than workflow jargon. This is the version to design your process around, because it is what the person actually approving will be looking at.

What the guest sees	What it sets
Click When Done (the default label)	Nothing yet — this is the prompt before a choice is made.
This is approved	Sets the page to Approved and sends the approval email.
I’m done	Sets the page to Needs Review, signalling they have finished commenting.

Once a guest has chosen, the button label reflects it — This is approved or I’m done — rather than switching to the internal status name.

The collaborate bottom bar as a guest sees it, showing the two plain-English approval options — Options, no jargon — what the client approving the work actually sees

Tell your client which of the two you want before you send the link

I’m done means “I have finished leaving feedback”; This is approved means “ship it”. Clients who are not told the difference tend to pick I’m done for both, and you end up chasing the sign-off anyway.

Recommendation

Invite clients as guests rather than adding them as team members when approval is the main thing you need from them. The guest experience is the simplified one, and it is the only version that shows the plain-English approval wording. Explore Understanding User Roles And Permissions

Setting Page Status as a Team Member

Logged-in team members see the full four-option list, and each option is controlled by its own permission. That means an Administrator can let a role mark pages Needs Review without letting them mark pages Approved.

Open the page in the collaborate view.

Select the status control in the bottom bar. The dropdown lists the statuses your role is permitted to set.

Choose a status. It saves immediately — there is no separate confirm step. The control’s label and colour update to match.

The Page Status dropdown open in Atarim, showing the four status options available to team members — Team members see four statuses; each one is controlled by its own permission

If a status is missing from your dropdown

Your role is not permitted to set it. Each of the four statuses has its own permission, so an Administrator can adjust this from Settings → User Permissions.

Page Approvals is a plan feature

For logged-in users the control is gated, and where it is unavailable it shows a plan badge naming the minimum plan required instead of the status list. Only the workspace owner can change the subscription. Guests are not subject to this gate, so a client can still approve even where your own team’s control is locked.

What Happens When a Page Is Approved

Approval is the only status that triggers anything, and it triggers several things at once.

What happens	Detail
An email goes out	Subject: You have a new page approved on [project name], sent to everyone set to be notified on the project.
Additional recipients are copied	Any addresses in your workspace’s additional recipients setting are added as BCC.
The email names who approved it	It includes the approver’s name, the page name, the project, and a direct link back to the page.
Tasks on the page are listed	The email includes the tasks belonging to that page, so recipients can see what was outstanding.
An activity record is written	Recorded as Page [name] has been approved on [project].
The approval is timestamped	The date and time are stored against the most recent task on the approved page.
White label is respected	Where white label is enabled for the project, the approval email follows it.

The page approved notification email, naming the approver, the page, and the tasks on it — The approval email names who approved it and lists the tasks that were on the page

Approving does not complete the tasks

Setting a page to Approved from the bottom bar leaves the tasks on that page at whatever status they already had. If you want them closed, complete them yourself — filtering to the page and using a bulk action is the quickest route. Discover How To Manage Tasks In Atarim

Tip

Because the approval email lists the tasks on the page, tidying task statuses before you ask for sign-off makes that email far more useful. An approval notice listing eight open tasks raises questions rather than closing them.

Approving a Page Atarim Has Not Seen Before

Atarim tracks pages as it encounters them. If you set a status on a page with no existing record, it creates one at the same time — browse to the page in the collaborate view, set a status from the bottom bar, and the page is added to the project with the status you chose.

Matching is done on the page URL

A page reached by a different URL — with tracking parameters appended, for example — may be treated as a separate page. Approve from the same clean URL you shared with the client.

Design Status on Designs Projects

Designs projects carry the same control, applied to the design currently in view rather than to a web page. It is labelled Design Status there, with the tooltip Change status for the current design in view, and it writes the status to that design.

The approval email is a page feature

The notification, activity record, and timestamp described above belong to page approvals. Setting a design’s status does not send them. Where a design sign-off needs to reach your team, follow it with a comment on the relevant task. Learn More About Client Communication

Benefits of a Recorded Approval

Benefit	In practice
Sign-off has a date and a name	The approval record answers “who signed this off, and when” without searching an inbox.
Approval happens in context	The client approves while looking at the page, not from a description of it in an email.
The team hears immediately	Everyone notified on the project gets the approval email without anyone forwarding it.
Clients are not asked to learn a system	Two plain options mean the approval step does not need explaining twice.
Progress is visible per page	Statuses let you see which pages are still moving and which are settled.

Example Use Cases

Situation	How to use the workflow
A staged site awaiting client sign-off	Set each page to Needs Review, share the link, and ask the client to use This is approved.
A client who keeps reopening settled pages	Point at the approval record — it carries their name and the date.
A round of feedback rather than a sign-off	Ask the client for I’m done, which marks the page Needs Review without approving it.
Junior staff who should not sign off	Withhold the Approved permission for that role while allowing Needs Review.
A launch checklist across many pages	Work through pages, moving each from In Progress to Needs Review to Approved.
A stakeholder who needs a copy of every sign-off	Add their address to additional recipients so they are copied on approval emails.

Known Limitations

There is no central approvals screen. Status is set on the page, in the collaborate view.

The control is hidden on mobile, for clients as well as for your team.

Workflows cannot trigger on page approval. Automation triggers cover task status, not page status.

Approving does not complete tasks on the page.

Only Approved notifies anyone. Needs Review is silent, so asking for review still needs a message.

Page matching is URL-based, so the same page reached by a different URL may be tracked separately.

Approval emails are suppressed for some enterprise integrations, where the platform handles its own notifications.

FAQs

Does my client need an Atarim account to approve a page?

No. A guest invited to the project can set the status without signing up, and guests are not subject to the plan gate on the control.

What is the difference between “I’m done” and “This is approved”?

I’m done sets the page to Needs Review and signals the client has finished commenting. This is approved sets it to Approved and sends the approval email.

Who receives the approval email?

Everyone set to be notified on the project, plus any additional recipients configured for the workspace, who are added as BCC.

Can I approve a page on my phone?

No. The status control is hidden on small screens for everyone, clients included.

Does approving a page close its tasks?

No. Task statuses are unchanged. Complete them separately if you want them closed.

Can I un-approve a page?

You can set it back to another status from the same control, provided your role is permitted to set that status.

Can a workflow run when a page is approved?

Not currently. Automation triggers cover task events such as status changes, not page approval.

Will the approval email carry our branding?

Yes, where white label is enabled for the project. Verifying your workspace mailbox also means it sends from your own address.

Common issues

The status control is not in the bottom bar — check you are on a desktop browser. The control is hidden on small screens.
The control shows a plan badge instead of statuses — Page Approvals is not included on the current plan. The badge names the minimum plan needed.
A status is missing from the dropdown — your role is not permitted to set it. An Administrator can change this in Settings → User Permissions.
The client sees only two options — that is the guest view working as intended: This is approved and I’m done.
No approval email arrived — confirm the page reached Approved rather than Needs Review, and that the recipients are set to be notified on the project.
Tasks are still open after approval — expected. Approving a page does not change task statuses; complete them separately.
The same page appears twice with different statuses — it was reached by two different URLs. Approve from the clean URL you shared with the client.
A design sign-off did not notify the team — the approval email belongs to page approvals. Follow a design sign-off with a comment on the task.

Conclusion

The approval workflow is deliberately small: one control, four statuses, and one of them that notifies people. What makes it work in practice is the guest view — a client who is shown two plain choices approves far more readily than one asked to interpret a workflow.

Set the expectation before you send the link, tidy the task list before you ask, and the approval email becomes a genuine record of sign-off rather than another notification. Discover Best Practices For Client Communication

Tips & best practices

Tell the client which of the two guest options you need before sending the link.
Use Needs Review as your “ready for you” signal, and send a message alongside it — the status alone notifies nobody.
Tidy task statuses before asking for sign-off, since the approval email lists them.
Withhold the Approved permission from roles that should not sign off on your behalf.
Approve from the same clean URL you shared, so the status lands on the page the client saw.
Add a stakeholder to additional recipients rather than forwarding every approval by hand.
Remember to complete the page’s tasks after approval — nothing does it for you.

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