External sign-off without a login: External Approvals

Until now, getting posts approved by clients, legal, or other departments ran through emails, spreadsheets, screenshots, or Google Sheets. Afterwards you copied the feedback back into Swat.io by hand. Every round costs time, and it’s easy to lose track of who approved what and when.

From now on, you collect approvals directly in Swat.io, without your reviewers needing a login. External reviewers approve your posts through a shared portal, and their decisions and comments land in Swat.io automatically.

How it works

Add reviewers:

Open “External approval” in the top right of the calendar sidebar and enter your reviewers’ email addresses. They need neither a paid Swat.io account nor a password. As soon as the first post enters the list, they receive their access by email.

Send posts for approval:

Select one or more posts in the calendar with a checkmark and send them to the approval list via “Ext. approval”. Alternatively, you can send a single post for approval directly in the Composer using the same button. You’ll also find the button for the approval portal at the very bottom of the sidebar. You can copy that link and share it this way too.

Approve in the portal:

Your reviewers open the link, confirm their email address once, and then see all the posts that need approval or already have it. Each post is shown as a preview, and there are two options:

1. Approve: with a single click on “Approve”.
2. Comment: leave a question or a change request directly on the post.

Posts are sorted by date. The “Awaiting Review” and “Approved” tabs let your reviewers keep track of what’s still open and what’s already done.

Stay in the conversation:

Keep an eye on the status:

Once the first person approves, the post’s sub-status changes to “Approved externally”. Every approval and every comment is logged in the activity log with a timestamp. That gives you a complete, traceable approval history right on the post at any time.

Note: External Approvals are only available in the Custom and Agency plans.

Good to know

• An approval doesn’t publish the post: It doesn’t change your post’s actual status in Swat.io and doesn’t trigger automatic publishing. Publishing stays a separate step that you control yourself.
• Only Workspace Managers set up approvals: Only Workspace Managers can add reviewers. To send a post to the approval list, you need full permission for that post.
• Permissions to add posts to approval-queue: For adding posts to the queue to get approved you need Full permissions – generally or for the specific post you like to add.
• Up to 10 external reviewers: In the portal you see all reviewer icons. Hover over an icon to see who has already approved.
• Approval links expire after 7 days: If a link has expired, your reviewer requests a new one through a short form.

Your benefit

Your clients and stakeholders approve posts without you needing an account for each person. Instead of piecing feedback together by hand from emails, PDFs, and spreadsheets, you have everything in one place: preview, approval, and discussion right on the post. And because every decision sits in the activity log with a timestamp, you can prove who approved what and when at any time, which is especially valuable for teams in regulated industries, agencies, and the public sector.

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This could be interesting for you:

• External approval help center article
• Publisher permission types

If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to our Support Team via chat or at support@swat.io!