Approval policies determine who must approve a user’s access request, and in what order (e.g., first a manager, then the business owner). Use this guide to configure simple or multi-step approvals based on your organization’s needs.

Creating a Policy

  • Manager: The request goes to the requester’s manager for approval.
  • Application Admins: The request goes directly to the assigned application admins responsible for that app.
  • Business Owner: The request goes to the owner of the requested app.
  • Individual User: The request goes to a specific user.

Assigning the Policy to Apps

You have two options:

  1. Assign a policy within an application. If no dedicated policy is chosen the ‘Default’ policy will be used.
  2. Open your approval policies and you can assign an app to each policy.

Handling Out-of-Office Approvers

  • If an approver is unavailable, an AccessOwl Org Admin can override approvals on their behalf by opening the access request in the admin interface.
  • The system audit log will show who performed the override and which user it was done on behalf of.

Best Practices

Keep It Simple

Avoid adding more approval steps than you need. Manager + App Admin are often enough for critical apps.

Use Auto-Approve for Low-Risk Apps

This cuts down on notification noise and speeds up onboarding for common tools.

FAQ