Set up and manage the approval process approving-marketing-campaigns

Each step of a delivery can be subject to approval in order to ensure full monitoring and control of the various processes of the campaign: targeting, content, budget, extraction, and sending a proof.

Notification messages are sent to the Adobe Campaign operators who are designated reviewers to inform them of an approval request. Check that the reviewers have the appropriate permissions for approving, and that their security zone is correctly defined. Learn more.

The approval procedure is presented in this section.

Operating principle operating-principle-

For example, the standard message for budget approval is as follows:

The reviewer operators can then choose to approve the budget or not.

Once the operator validates, approval or rejection of the job is forwarded to the delivery dashboard.

The information is also available in the approval logs of the campaign.These logs are accessed via the Edit > Tracking > Approvals tab.

These notifications are sent to the operators affected to each process for which approval was enabled.

Approvals can be enabled for the campaign template, for each campaign individually, or for a delivery.

All jobs requiring approval are selected in the campaign template ( Properties > Advanced campaign settings… > Approvals tab), as are the operators in charge of approval (they will receive notifications, unless this option is not enabled). For more on this, refer to this section.

These settings can be overridden for each campaign created using this template, and individually for each campaign delivery: click the Properties button, then the Approvals tab.

In the following example, the delivery content will not require approvals:

Select reviewers selecting-reviewers

For each type of approval, the operators or operator groups in charge of approval are selected from the drop-down list in the delivery. More operators can be added using the Edit… link. This window also lets you edit the approval deadline.

If no reviewer is specified, the campaign manager will be responsible for approval and will receive the notifications. The campaign manager is specified in the Edit > Properties tab of the campaign:

Approval modes approval-modes

Approval via the dashboard approval-via-the-dashboard

To approve a job via the console or the web interface, click the appropriate link on the campaign dashboard. Jobs can also be approved via delivery tracking or via the delivery dashboard.

Check the information to be approved, choose whether to accept or reject approval and, if necessary, enter a comment. Click Ok to save.

Approval via notification messages approval-via-notification-messages

Click the link available in the notification message (see Notifications). You need to log in, as shown below:

Select Accept or Reject and enter a comment if necessary.

Click Validate.

Approval tracking approval-tracking

The information is available in several places:

Automatic and manual approval automatic-and-manual-approval

When creating a targeting workflow, if approval is automatic (default mode), Adobe Campaign displays the approval link or sends a notification as soon as an approval is required.

To choose the approval mode (manual or automatic), click the Edit > Properties tab of the campaign or campaign template, then click Advanced campaign settings… and finally the Approvals tab.

When a targeting workflow is being built, manual approval lets you avoid creating approval links or sending notifications automatically. The campaign dashboard then offers a Submit targeting for approval link to launch the approval process manually.

A confirmation message lets you authorize approvals on the jobs selected for this delivery.

The approval buttons are then displayed on the campaign dashboard (for this delivery), on the delivery dashboard and in delivery tracking. If notifications are enabled, they will be sent in parallel.

This method of enabling approvals lets you work on targeting without sending spurious notifications to reviewers.

Notifications notifications

Notifications are specific email messages sent to reviewers to inform them that a process is pending approval. When the operator clicks the link in the message, an authentication page appears and, after logging in, the operator can view the information and approve or reject the job. A comment can also be entered in the approval window.

The content of notification emails can be personalized. See Notification content.

Enable/Disable Notification enabling-disabling-notification

By default, notification messages are sent if the approval of the related job is enabled in the campaign template, the campaign, or the delivery. Notifications can, however, be disabled in order to authorize approvals from the console only.

To do this, edit the approval window of the campaign or campaign template ( Edit > Properties > Advanced campaign settings… > Approvals tab) and select Do not enable notification sending.

Notification content notification-content

Notification content is defined in a specific template: Notification of validations for the marketing campaign. This template is saved in the Administration > Campaign management > Technical delivery templates folder of the Adobe Campaign tree.

Review and approve deliveries checking-and-approving-deliveries

Adobe Campaign lets you set up approval processes for the main stages of the marketing campaign in collaborative mode.

For direct mail deliveries, Adobe Campaign operators can view the extraction file before it is sent to the router, and if necessary they can change the format and re-launch extraction. See Approve an extraction file.

For each campaign you can approve the delivery target, content (see Approve content) and costs. Adobe Campaign operators in charge of approval can be notified by email and can accept or reject approval from the console or via a web connection. See Steps to approve a delivery.

When these validation phases are complete, the delivery can be launched. Learn more.

Steps to approve a delivery approving-processes

The stages requiring approval appear on the campaign dashboard (via the console of the web interface). They also appear in the delivery tracking table and on the delivery dashboard.

At this point, the status of the campaign is To validate.

For each delivery in the campaign, you can approve the following processes:

Select processes approve choosing-the-processes-to-be-approved

The approval phases are defined with the template associated with the campaign. You must select the elements to be approved from the template and specify the Adobe Campaign operators responsible for these approvals. For more on campaign templates, refer to this section.

This information can be overridden for each campaign and each delivery.

For a campaign, click the Edit > Properties tab, then the Advanced campaign settings… link, and finally the Approvals sub-tab to access the approvals configuration page.

You can select and deselect the processes to approve and appoint Adobe Campaign operators in charge of approval. These can be individual operators, a group of operators, or a list of operators.

To select a list of operators, click the Edit… link to the right of the field designating the first reviewer and add as many operators as necessary, as shown below:

For each delivery, click the Audit button and the Approvals tab to view and edit approval dates and automatic reminders.

Approve a content approving-content

It is possible to configure a content approval cycle. To do this, select the Enable content approval option in the approval settings window. The main steps of the content approval cycle are:

Assign content editing assign-content-editing

This option lets you define someone in charge of content editing, such as a webmaster. If the Assign content editing option is selected in the approval settings window, several approval steps are added between delivery creation and delivery of the notification email to the person in charge of content:

External content approval external-content-approval

This option lets you define an external operator in charge of approving delivery rendering, such as brand communication consistency, rates, etc. When the External content approval option is selected in the approval settings window, several approval steps are added between content approval and the delivery of the notification to the person in charge of the campaign:

Approve an extraction file approving-an-extraction-file

For offline deliveries, Adobe Campaign generates an extraction file which, depending on how it is set up, is sent to the router. Its content depends on the export template used.

When the content, targeting and budget have been approved, the delivery changes to Extraction pending until the extraction workflow for the campaigns is launched.

On the extraction request date, the extraction file is created and the delivery status changes to File to approve.

You can view the content of the extracted file (by clicking its name), approve it or, if necessary, change the format and re-launch the extraction using the links on the dashboard.

Once the file has been approved, you can send the notification email to the router. For more on this, refer to Start an offline delivery.