Available for Premier and Enterprise plans.
You can set up an internal approval process for your "offer" type e-signature templates. After setting up an offer to send to a candidate, chosen hiring managers or administrators will need to approve or sign the offer before the candidate is contacted.
The entire approval process is recorded on the candidate's profile so the team can see which stakeholders need to provide their approval or why a hiring manager rejected the offer details.
Setting up an approval workflow
- Open your user menu in the upper right and select Settings, then Templates from the menu on the left.
- Locate the e-signature templates section and edit or add a template, selecting the type 'offer'.
- In the Approval workflow section of the template editor, you'll create a process through which your coworkers will review and approve an offer's details.
- Select Add Approvers to create one or more approval groups. One person from each group must approve the offer before it can be sent.
- Add users by name or by user type. For example, add 'Admin' or 'Hiring Managers'.
- Select Add more approvers to add more groups.
Below are your options when adding users:
- Admin group: any Admin in Workable can approve the offer
- Recruiter group: any Recruiter assigned to the job can approve the offer
- Hiring Managers group: any user who is assigned to the job as a Hiring Manager can approve the offer
- Name: this specific person can approve the offer; they must be an admin or assigned to the job as a Hiring Manager
An approval notification will be sent to each group in succession: Group 1 must approve before Group 2 is notified, and so on.
In this example, when we're ready to send this offer template to a candidate, the Administrators on our account and Alexia are notified and asked to approve.
After any one of the people in the first group approves the offer, the Hiring Managers assigned to the job receive a notification to review and approve it. Once a Hiring Manager approves, this example's approval workflow is complete. Delivery follows the option selected when the offer was created, as explained below.
Note: If the sender of an offer qualifies as an approver in any approval group, then those groups will approve the offer automatically. The sender inputs all of the offer details and verifies the information when setting up the offer. Since they have already approved the offer during creation, any step where they might have had to approve it is auto-approved.
Adding a company signatory
You can add a signer to the offer letter who will be requested to sign the contract or offer before it's sent to the candidate. Company signers must be in the job's hiring team as Hiring Managers and above. The [company_signature] variable must be included in your offer document in order to add a signatory.
👉 Learn more about adding a company signatory to offers.
Using an approval workflow
While sending an offer e-signature document, the approval workflow appears when you review the details. In the Review & send step, choose the delivery option, confirm the details, and select Send offer for approval to initiate the workflow.
Users in the first group receive a notification in their Workable inbox and an email. The request includes the offer details, such as salary and vacation time, with options to approve or reject.
A Delivery row shows whether the offer will be sent immediately after final approval, manually after approval, or on a schedule. Approvers can check this before deciding whether to approve.
If a user rejects the offer, they will be asked to note a reason, and the person who initially set up the offer will be notified. Any necessary updates should be made, and the offer can be set up again.
After one person in the first group has approved the offer, the next group is notified, and so on.
As each group provides its approval, the workflow in the candidate's Offer tab updates. Each step appears as a numbered card, with a checkmark once completed or a cross if rejected. The member who approved or signed is shown in the completed step.
In a pending step, approvers joined by 'or' indicate that any one of them can approve. If all members in a step are inactive, it shows None of these members are active.
After all approval groups have approved the offer, the company signatory, if required, is notified with a link to sign the offer document. Once the required approvals and signatures are complete, the offer is delivered according to the option selected when it was created: immediately, at the scheduled time, or after an authorized member sends it manually.
Offers waiting for manual or scheduled delivery show the Approved status. For manual delivery, a member with the Send or cancel offer permission selects Send now in the candidate's Offer tab or Send offer in their inbox task.
The offer creator and candidate followers with View offer details permission receive an approval-completion notification indicating whether the offer was sent, scheduled, or is ready to send.
Approvers and signatories can complete their actions even if the offer creator's Gmail or Office 365 account is disconnected. If automatic delivery fails, the offer remains Approved and switches to manual delivery, and an Offer delivery failed notification explains what needs to be resolved.
Sending an approval reminder
While an offer is pending approval or pending signature, the current approval group's waiting time is shown next to their name in the Offer section of the candidate's profile. Point to the waiting time to see the exact date and time the approval was requested.
Select Send reminder to notify that group again. Only the group whose turn it currently is receives the reminder — approvers from earlier groups who already signed off, and members of later groups, are not notified. Before sending, a confirmation dialog shows who will receive the reminder and when the last request or reminder was sent, so you can decide whether a nudge makes sense yet.
Note: Once a reminder is sent, an Approval reminder sent label appears next to the waiting time, and the Send reminder button is temporarily disabled. It becomes available again once the page is reloaded — this only prevents sending the same reminder twice in one session, not a required cooling-off period.
The approver receives a new inbox notification (their previous one is archived) along with any other notifications they have configured, such as email, Slack, or push. Links in the original notification remain valid, so nothing breaks if an approver acts on the first message instead.
If the approval group has already approved, or the offer was canceled or expired since the page was loaded, no reminder is sent — you'll see an error message and the offer details refresh to the current status.