What we're solving
Research, customers and a design-partner cohort.
A 450-respondent survey, in-depth interviews with regulated and unregulated teams, three personas, and the existing AppFox approval app already in production at the companies below. The design-partner cohort for OneApproval is being built now.
Customers today
Teams at these companies use our approval tooling today. OneApproval is what comes next.
Deutsche Bank
UN Office at Geneva
Customers of Approvals for Confluence, and Workflows for Confluence, two of our existing AppFox apps. OneApproval is the cross-platform successor; their workflows are ready to transfer in 2026.
The 450 survey
What 450 people told us about approvals.
We surveyed authors, approvers and process owners across engineering, marketing, IT, education and project management. Company sizes ranged from 50 to 50,000 employees.
The answer wasn't subtle. Approval work is everywhere, slow, and unaccounted for. 88% of teams don't use a dedicated tool. They rely on email, chat, document comments and meetings.
Cross-platform need was the surprise. 61% work across more than one platform for approvals: Microsoft 365 with Google Workspace, or with Canva, or with Confluence. No native tool serves that user.
"Where do approvals happen today?"
450 respondents · multi-select
Published Q2 2026
50.5%
Document comments
45.5%
Chat (Slack, Teams)
30.2%
Work mgmt (Jira, Monday)
27.7%
Meetings / verbal
20.8%
Dedicated approval tool
11.4%
Source: OneApproval research survey · n=450 · April 2026
Personas
Three people in every approval. We design for the author first.
If authors don't adopt the tool, no one else does. The Word task pane, the templates and the dashboard all start with the person sending the document.
Primary
The Author
Wants a clear, fast approval with less follow-up and no version confusion. Usually a manager, IC, or project lead. Pulls together a draft, sends it for review, owns the outcome.
Top wants
One way to send, regardless of platform
Status visible without nudging
Approvals tied to the right version
Templates they can reuse
Secondary
The Approver
Wants to review fast with context, then move on. Often a director, legal counsel, brand lead, or technical reviewer. Doesn't want to learn another tool.
Top wants
Decide from where they already work
What am I approving, exactly?
One-click access to the source doc
No password, no second account
Tertiary
The Process Owner
Wants consistent workflows, visibility, and audit evidence. Often a compliance, QA, IT, or operations lead. Arrives later in adoption but shapes whether the rollout sticks.
Top wants
Standardized templates across teams
Org-wide dashboards and reports
Exportable, audit-ready records
SSO, residency, governance controls
Customer interviews
What we heard in depth, from people running approvals today.
Names and companies are anonymized. We don't claim customers we don't have. These quotes come from research calls with prospective design partners through Q1 and Q2 2026.
"
Twenty thousand pages, an ISO 13485 quality system, and a regulator on site last quarter. The audit trail is what saves us. It just needs to be cross-platform and multi-round.
QM
Senior Quality Manager
Orthopedic medical-device manufacturer
"
Email gets tuned out. Many approvers never see the notification. We need this to land in Teams, where they actually look.
QM
Senior Quality Manager
Orthopedic medical-device manufacturer
"
I need a dashboard that tells me who's actually engaging. Who's approving, who's stuck, who never opened it. Without me having to navigate Confluence to find out.
CC
Compliance Coordinator
Regulated medical imaging company
"
The CSV export shows how many people approved, but not who. For us, identifying the gaps is the whole point of having an export.
CC
Compliance Coordinator
Regulated medical imaging company
"
SharePoint is the obvious gap. We're heavily Microsoft. Every governance conversation eventually lands on "but it's not in Confluence". Fix that and you've got the whole room.
PG
Platform Governance Lead
Global payments processor post-acquisition
"
Right now most release approvals still happen in Outlook threads. Everyone admits it's harder to audit than the plugin, but the plugin doesn't cover the platforms they're working in.
PG
Platform Governance Lead
Global payments processor post-acquisition
"
Our customers are guest users. They approve a document to confirm the delivered work matches what was ordered. Without proper guest support, that whole flow falls apart.
CA
Consultancy Administrator
Microsoft Dynamics consultancy, EU
"
Honestly I don't want approvals everywhere. We just consolidated onto one platform on purpose. Give people SharePoint approvals and they'll drift right back to the chaos.
SC
Solo Compliance Lead
HR-tech SaaS standardizing on Confluence
"
An "author stamp", a sign-off that I wrote and own this, would matter as much to me as the approver flow. The author is a participant in the trail, not just the trigger.
SC
Solo Compliance Lead
HR-tech SaaS standardizing on Confluence
"
Auditors don't actually read the documents. They check whether the right person signed off, when, on which version. That's all the trail has to prove.
PG
Platform Governance Lead
Global payments processor post-acquisition
Who we're talking to
The industries our pre-release cohort is shaped by.
Regulated organizations come first. They care most about audit, version and standardization. SaaS, agency and operations teams need cross-platform.
Industry
Medical devices & pharma
SOP drafts, internal sign-offs, cross-team approvals across Confluence, SharePoint and Word. Validated records stay in Veeva, MasterControl or Ketryx — not a QMS replacement.
Industry
Financial services
Policy approvals, audit trails, SOX-grade evidence across Excel templates and Confluence wikis. Microsoft-heavy throughout.
Industry
Public sector & health
Multi-stage policy approvals, external consultations, FOI-compliant records across a Microsoft 365 stack.
Industry
Mid-market SaaS
Product RFCs, marketing plans, brand work, engineering specs across Google Docs, Word, Canva and Confluence. Cross-platform from day one.
Accepting design partners now
Want to be quoted on this page next?
Our first design partners shape the roadmap, get founding-partner terms, and run real approvals on the product six months before public launch. Here's how to join.
Step 01
30-minute intro
You tell us about your approvals today. We tell you where OneApproval is right now. No demo theatre.
Step 02
Pilot on one team
Run a real approval workflow with 5-15 people. We're hands-on through setup. You feed back what doesn't fit.
Step 03
Founding partner
Roll out broader, with preferred pricing locked in for life. Your needs steer the next quarter of the roadmap.
Apply to be a design partner
Book a 30-minute intro →
Have your own approval story?
We're booking 30-minute research calls with anyone who runs document approvals. No commitment required.
Book a research call
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