In a corporate environment, documents like contracts, marketing copy, and HR policies rarely go straight from draft to publication. They require review and sign-off from multiple stakeholders. Traditionally, employees achieve this by emailing a document attachment back and forth, asking, “Does this look good to you?” This creates version control nightmares. Google Workspace solves this natively using Google Drive Approvals, a structured workflow system built directly into Docs, Sheets, and Slides.
Note: This feature is available to most Google Workspace business and enterprise tiers, but may not be available for free personal accounts.
Step 1: Request an Approval
Imagine you have finished drafting a new internal policy in Google Docs and need your manager to sign off on it.
- Open the Google Doc.
- Click File in the top menu and select Approvals.
- A sidebar will appear on the right side of the screen. Click the Make a request button.
Step 2: Configure the Workflow
A dialog box will appear where you define the rules of the approval process.
- Add Approvers: Type the email addresses of the people who need to review the document. If you add multiple people, you can check the box to require that everyone approves it, or leave it unchecked if you only need one person from a group to say yes.
- Add a Message: Provide context for the reviewers (e.g., “Please review the updated remote work clauses”).
- Set a Due Date (Optional): Keep the project on schedule by assigning a deadline. Reviewers will receive automated email reminders as the deadline approaches.
- Lock the Document (Crucial): Check the box to Lock the file before sending the approval request. This prevents anyone (even editors) from altering the text while the approvers are reading it, ensuring they aren’t signing off on a moving target.
- Click Send Request.
Step 3: The Reviewer Experience
When you send the request, the approvers receive an automated email notification containing a direct link to the document.
When an approver opens the file, they will see a banner across the top indicating it is pending their approval. They can review the document but cannot make direct edits (because it is locked). If they spot an error, they can leave a comment or click Reject and provide a reason.
If the document is acceptable, they simply click the large Approve button in the banner.
Step 4: Handling Rejections and Edits
If an approver rejects the document, you (the author) receive an email notification. To fix the issue, you must unlock the document, make the necessary edits, and restart the approval process from Step 1.
If someone forcibly unlocks the document and makes a typo correction while an approval is pending, the system immediately flags the document and notifies the previous approvers that the content they signed off on has changed, forcing a re-review.
Step 5: Finalizing the Document
Once all required reviewers have clicked “Approve,” the document enters an “Approved” state. A badge is added to the file, serving as an immutable, auditable record that the specific version of the text was officially sanctioned by management on a specific date. This simple workflow eliminates email clutter and provides total clarity on the status of important corporate assets.