Approvals

The Approvals step is a great way to get final sign-off from stakeholders before a release moves into its final stages (typically, before an app update is submitted to the stores for approval).

Approvers can mark an item as In progress, Approved, Rejected, or Blocked. An approver can also leave an optional comment to provide additional context.

Team members with an assigned role of Approver will have the ability to update the status of Approval items, but will otherwise have read-only access to the rest of Runway.

Approvals can be used to gate submission or release automations, because Runway requires the Approvals step to be complete (green) before automatically submitting an update for review to the app store.

For example, your team might need the Compliance department to give you the green light for every app update, or you might have a VP of Product who wants to stay in the loop.

Managing approval lists

You can view the list of all existing Approval items from the initial Summary tab. From here you can Add items to the list or Edit the existing list.

If you click the Edit button, you'll see additional controls to Delete an item, Edit an item's details, or re-order the list. Hit Done when you're finished making changes.

Click the Add button to create a new Approval item.

Approval item components

Release types

Specify which types of releases (major, minor, point, hotfix) require this Approval.

Approval item

A name for this Approval item. This appears on the Approval list itself, as well as notifications related to updates on this item.

Notify in Slack or Teams when completed

Keep this option selected if you want your team to be notified about updates to this item during a release cycle. Runway will post in Slack or Teams when this item is marked as Approved, Rejected, or Blocked (or was formerly Approved but reverted), as well as who performed the change and when.

Additional information

Optional - You can add information here that can easily be surfaced in Runway for team members responsible for approving this task. These notes serve as documentation that will be available on every release cycle. Markdown is supported, and there's a built-in viewer.

For example, your Legal department might need quick tips on how to download and view the latest build in order to sign off. You can leave those instructions in 'Additional information' and they'll be easy to find on each release.

Owners

Approval items can optionally specify user groups or individuals as owners. Designate an owner if an approval is intended to be granted by a specific team member (or by a team member from a specific group). Owners — individuals, or any members of the specified group(s) — will be able to update the item's status or leave comments.

In addition to any specified owners / owner groups, anyone with a default or custom role that has the 'Update approval items status' permission will be able to update the status or leave comments on any approval item.