Hiver Product Update: Simplify and accelerate approval requests with Hiver’s Approvals feature

Approvals are an integral part of all organizations – almost every team relies heavily on approvals from multiple stakeholders across departments to ensure compliance, mitigate risks, avoid penalties, and add more accountability to the decision-making process. However, an approval process has quite a few challenges associated with it:

• Manual and inconsistent – Manual email-based approval processes are prone to human error, inconsistencies, and delays. Emails can get lost or overlooked among Forwards/CCs, leading to approvals slipping through the cracks.
• Low visibility and transparency – It is hard to maintain complete visibility into the approval status at any given point for requests managed over emails. This lack of visibility can result in confusion and inefficiencies.
• Difficulty managing cross-departmental approvals – Most business requests require inputs and approval from different departments. Managing cross-departmental communications can lead to delays in obtaining the necessary approvals. These delays can further cause potential revenue losses, customer dissatisfaction, or non-compliance penalties in some cases.

Introducing Approvals by Hiver

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of our newest feature – Approvals, to empower you to get the required approvals fast without leaving your inbox. 

With this feature, you can create and manage approval workflows within Gmail to streamline your approvals processes, enhance collaboration, track approvals better, and reduce delays.

Here’s what you can achieve with the Approvals feature:

• Customize approval workflows as per requirement – For every workflow, you can define multiple approval steps involving approvers across departments. This flexibility allows you to build workflows that align perfectly with your team’s structure and ensure accurate decision-making at every step.

• Initiate and track approval requests effortlessly – For any business request, kickstart the approval workflow right next to the email conversation in just a few clicks. Hiver also allows you to track the status of each approval request, identify bottlenecks, and take proactive measures to keep things moving smoothly.

• Collaborate efficiently in one place – With Hiver, you can add context to email conversations using notes, tag colleagues for their input, and resolve any queries that arise at any step during the approval process without switching between different platforms. Say goodbye to scattered conversation threads, and say hello to a centralized hub for collaboration!

• Get approvals fast and secure – Hiver prioritizes the security and privacy of your data – all approval communication remains encrypted and stored securely within your email account. With Hiver’s robust security measures, you can focus on your work without worrying about compromising sensitive information.

How can different teams use Approvals

• Finance Operations – Ensure complete transparency while managing approvals for purchase orders, invoices, reimbursement requests, departmental budgets, etc. 
• Customer Service – Get faster approvals from finance heads and account managers to process customer requests for discounts, plan extensions, and more.
• People Operations – Build effective workflows to accelerate internal approvals for job offers, policy changes, onboarding requirements for new employees, and more HR tasks.
• ITSM – Create better visibility for new software purchases and other IT approval requests that involve Finance, Security, and Engineering Heads.

Get Started Today!

We’re excited to introduce the Approvals feature, designed to bring simplicity, efficiency, and transparency to your approval workflows. To get started, head to the Approvals help article and kickstart the faster way of managing business requests!

If you’re new to Hiver, set up a free trial of our platform to discover how Approvals and Hiver’s other powerful features can transform your team’s efficiency.