Ticket Approvals — Gatekeeping Decisions in Kanban

Some work stages need a decision before the next step can start. A language check before anything goes to print. A budget sign-off before an order is placed. A manager review before a client quote is sent. Pulse Tickets handles this with approval columns — a column type that blocks forward movement until a designated approver signs off.

What an approval column does

When a ticket is moved into an approval-type column:

1. Pulse creates an approval request for every designated approver of that column.
2. Each approver receives an in-app notification and an email with a direct link to the ticket.
3. The ticket can't move forward (to the next column in the flow) until at least one approval is recorded.

An approver can approve or reject. Rejection requires a note — it can't be blank — so the requester always knows why the work was sent back.

Setting up an approval column

Open Board Settings → Columns and edit or create a column. Toggle Requires approval on. A second field appears: Approvers. Select the team members who should be notified and can approve or reject tickets that enter this column.

Any number of approvers can be added. Only one approval is needed to unblock the ticket — it's not an all-or-nothing vote.

The approval workflow in practice

Step 1: Work arrives in the approval column. The ticket card gets a visual indicator, and approvers are notified. The card shows a pending-approval state on the board.

Step 2: The approver opens the ticket. They can use the deep link from the notification email, or click the ticket on the board. The ticket detail has an Approval tab showing all outstanding approval requests for the current column.

Step 3: Approve or reject.

• Approve — the ticket is unblocked. The team can now move it to the next column. The approval is logged with the approver's name and timestamp.
• Reject — the approver enters a rejection note (required). The ticket stays in the approval column, flagged as rejected. The ticket creator and any cross-branch sender are notified with the rejection note included.

Step 4: Resolution. After a rejection, the team typically moves the ticket back to an earlier column to address the feedback, then moves it back to the approval column when ready. Moving back to the approval column creates a new approval round — the previous rejection is preserved in the activity feed.

Approval gates are never skipped

Pulse enforces approval gates on the server side. Even if someone manually constructs an API call, the gate can't be bypassed without a valid approved row. Automation rules also respect this: a rule that tries to forward-move a ticket out of an approval column without sign-off is marked skipped, not failed, and the gate remains intact.

Visibility for cross-branch tickets

If a cross-branch ticket enters an approval column, the approval flow happens entirely within the receiving organisation. The sending branch doesn't see the individual approvers or the approval detail — they see the ticket advance to the next column (or return) and receive the appropriate notification.

Audit trail

Every approval and rejection is recorded in the ticket's Activity tab: who approved or rejected, when, and (for rejections) the full note. This log is immutable and is included in any export or archive. It gives managers a complete, verifiable record of which decisions were made, by whom, and when.