Maintaining strategic alignment and quality control in goal-setting requires oversight, especially in larger organizations. Profit.co's configurable approval workflow ensures that proposed OKRs undergo proper review before activation, giving leaders the ability to guide teams toward meaningful, well-crafted objectives.
Table of Contents
- What makes the approval flow for OKRs valuable?
- How do I enable approval flow for OKRs in Profit.co?
- What happens if the approver applies a Request Change?
- What are the benefits of enabling approval flow for OKRs?
- Best practices for using approval flow for OKRs
- Related Questions
- Frequently Asked Questions
What makes the approval flow for OKRs valuable?
The approval flow ensures strategic alignment and quality control through structured review processes:
- Quality assurance: The approval process provides an opportunity for managers to review and evaluate proposed OKRs and to suggest modifications or improvements
- Controlled creation: Profit.co provides an option to restrict the OKR creation/editing of the OKRs by the employees. Only the selected members can give the approval to edit or create OKRs
How do I enable approval flow for OKRs in Profit.co?
Step 1
- Navigate to Settings → OKRs → Authoring from the left navigation panel.
- In the General page, under the Approval Flows section, enable the Approval to create/edit/delete the Individual, Department OKRs toggles that you want.
- You can customize the approval process by clicking the Customize option.
Note
The approval can be given only by any one of the selected names and the superuser.
Step 2
- While creating an Individual OKR, the user will get the option Submit for Approval.
Step 3
- The Manager can view the OKR Approval Pending in their Home Pages action center.
- Once you click on the OKR Approvals, the Left panel will appear.
- When you click the Review Changes button, you can review the OKRs, add comments, and choose to accept, reject, or request revisions.
You can perform the same action by navigating to OKRs → OKRs Pending Approval from the left navigation panel, and then switching to the Received for Approval tab.
What happens if the approver applies a Request Change?
If the approver clicks Request Change:
- The approver has to provide a comment, i.e., the reason for making changes in the OKR.
The user will be getting the status Revisions Requested with the reason.
After making the changes, the user can send the OKR for approval, having the status Pending Approval.
What are the benefits of enabling approval flow for OKRs?
Strategic Alignment:
- Ensures OKRs align with organizational priorities
- Managers can guide teams toward meaningful objectives
- Prevents misaligned or conflicting goals
Quality Control:
- Review process catches poorly defined objectives
- Opportunity to refine ambiguous or unmeasurable key results
- Feedback loop improves OKR writing skills over time
Governance and Oversight:
- Controlled OKR creation prevents unauthorized changes
- Maintains organizational structure and hierarchy
- Clear audit trail of who approved what
Collaborative Refinement:
- The Request Change feature enables constructive feedback
- Iterative improvement through revision cycles
- Dialogue between employees and managers
Best practices for using approval flow for OKRs
- Designate appropriate approvers: Select managers or leaders who understand both organizational strategy and team capabilities to make informed approval decisions
- Provide clear feedback: When requesting changes, give specific, actionable comments explaining why revisions are needed and what improvements would make the OKR acceptable
- Set expectations on turnaround time: Establish norms for how quickly approvers should review pending OKRs to prevent bottlenecks in the OKR creation process
- Review regularly, not just at approval: Use the approval process as one touchpoint in ongoing OKR conversations, not as a replacement for regular check-ins
- Enable for the right scenarios: Consider whether approval flow is necessary for all OKR types—you might enable it for departmental OKRs but allow individual OKRs to be created freely
- Train on OKR best practices: Reduce back-and-forth by educating teams on what makes good OKRs before they submit for approval
- Use Request Change constructively: Frame revision requests as coaching opportunities to help employees develop better goal-setting skills
Related Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
OKRs with pending approval status are visible to the creator with a "Pending approval" alert on the view page. They remain in this state until an approver either accepts them or requests changes.
Yes, you can selectively enable approval flow by choosing which toggles to activate in the Approval Flows section—you may require approval for Individual OKRs, Department OKRs, or both, depending on your organizational needs.
When an approver requests changes, the OKR status changes to "Revisions Requested" along with the approver's comments explaining what needs to be modified. The creator can then edit the OKR and resubmit it for approval, which returns it to "Pending Approval" status.
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