Approve or deny a form response

Open the response and use the Approve or Deny button at the bottom of the panel. Approving requires your signature. Denying requires a written reason, which is sent to the responder so they can correct the response and resubmit it. Only the people listed under Requires Approval From on that form can do either, and that includes administrators: being an account administrator does not by itself let you approve anything.

Participants are labelled Clients, Students, Residents or Explorers depending on the account type. This article calls them participants.

While a response is awaiting approval, the form's ordinary response subscribers are not notified. They are told only once it is approved.

The confirmation reads "Response was successfully approved!". The badge becomes Approved, hovering over it shows the approval date, and the response gains an Approval block reading "Approved on [date] by [name]" with your signature.

The confirmation reads "Response was denied." The response gets a red Denied badge, and the detail panel shows a red banner reading "Denied on [date and time] by [name]" with your comment underneath.

The approve and deny cycle can repeat as many times as needed.

Approving always needs a signature

There is no way to approve without signing. Submitting the approval with an empty signature pad gives "Signature data is required to approve the response."

Denying always needs a comment

Leaving the reason blank gives "A comment is required when denying a response."

Approval is final

There is no unapprove and no way to deny a response that has already been approved: Deny is only offered while the status is Awaiting Approval. An approved response cannot be edited by anyone, including account administrators. If an approved response is wrong, delete it and collect a new one. The one thing that can still be changed is its subject and pathway assignments, and only by the person who approved it.

Awaiting Approval is locked too

Nobody can edit a response while it is awaiting approval. To get changes into it, an approver has to deny it first.

Only the original responder can fix a denied response

A denied response can be edited only by the person who submitted it. Other team members, including administrators, cannot edit it on their behalf. If that person is unavailable, delete the response and collect a new one.

Signatures on a denied response

If the form requires a signature, the response shows "Editing this response will require the signature to be recaptured." and, on the edit page, "A new signature is required when resubmitting this response." Submitting without a new signature gives "Signature is required when resubmitting a denied response." Using Save & Finish Later while correcting a denied response is the exception: it saves the draft as In Progress without demanding a signature, and does not send it back to the approvers.

Denied responses cannot be downloaded

The Download button is hidden on a denied response until it has been resubmitted and completed.

If you are not an approver

Someone who can see the response but is not on the approver list sees a yellow Awaiting Approval banner and no buttons at all.

Records kept

Every denial is stored with its date, the approver's name and the reason, and the Form Responses report includes Times Denied, Last Denied On, Last Denied By and Last Denial Reason columns. Approval stores the approver, the timestamp and the signature image.

Where the approved response ends up

An approved response with a subject becomes a document on that participant's profile, and is included in reporting and exports.

I am an account administrator and I don't see the Approve button. Why?
Approval is granted by name, not by role. Open the form, click Edit Form, and add yourself under Requires Approval From. Being an administrator, or having Forms permissions, does not give you approval rights on its own.

Can I approve without signing?
No. The approval form is a signature pad, and submitting it empty returns "Signature data is required to approve the response." The signature is stored with the response as the record of who signed off.

Is the denial comment required?
Yes. Denying without a reason returns "A comment is required when denying a response." The comment is what the responder sees in the email and in the red banner on the response, so say which questions need changing.

Can I undo an approval?
No. There is no unapprove action and an approved response cannot be denied or edited by anyone. If the content is wrong, delete the response and collect a new one. The approver can still change the response's subject without affecting the approval.

Can I edit a response instead of denying it?
Not while it is awaiting approval; it is locked for everyone. Deny it with a note about what to change and the responder corrects it themselves. Only the original responder can edit a denied response.

What happens to the signature when a signed response is denied?
The responder has to sign again before resubmitting. Equip warns them on both the response and the edit page, and refuses the resubmission with "Signature is required when resubmitting a denied response." if they do not.

Can an external responder resubmit after a denial?
Yes. They get an email with an Edit and Resubmit button that reopens their original link, and that email restarts the link's expiry window so a lapsed invitation still works.

Can a response be denied again after it is resubmitted?
Yes. A resubmitted response returns to Awaiting Approval and the approvers can approve or deny it again, as many rounds as it takes.

Why can't I see the response on the participant's profile yet?
A response only becomes a document on the profile once it is completed and has a subject. A response sitting in Awaiting Approval has not completed yet, so nothing is filed there until it is approved.