Notifications & Locks

The visible parts of approvals are submitting and deciding. Behind them, three things keep the process honest: notifications so people act in time, field locks so a deal can’t drift while it’s under review, and rerouting so the right person still approves when the deal changes.

Notifications

Pinion notifies on the two moments that matter:

  • Submitted — the approver is emailed when a request lands in their queue (“Action required”), with the deal context, the reason, and the SLA deadline.
  • Decided — the submitter (the rep) is emailed when the chain reaches a final decision (“approved” / “rejected”), including the approver’s comment.

Email delivery is best-effort — a send failure is logged and never blocks the approval itself.

Field locks

When a configuration is submitted, the fields its rules test are locked on the deal — so the number that triggered approval can’t quietly change while approvers are reviewing it. Try to edit a locked field and you’re blocked with a message naming the rule and telling you to recall or wait.

  • While pending — every tested field across all pending requests on the deal is locked.
  • After approval — the lock persists unless the rule was authored Editable after approval (then those fields free up once it’s approved). When multiple rules touch the same field, the strictest wins — any rule that isn’t “editable after approval” keeps it locked.
  • Syncing an approved configuration is allowed — the system briefly lifts the lock for the approved sync so writing the line items doesn’t fight it.

Rerouting on change

Some changes should send a deal to a different approver — most commonly when the deal’s owner changes and the chain routes to “the owner’s manager.” For that, a rule can name reroute-on-change fields. If one of those fields changes after submission:

  • Pinion re-resolves the approver from the rule’s formula,
  • and if it now resolves to a different person, the original pending request is skipped (kept in the audit trail) and a new request is created for the new approver.

So a deal reassigned mid-approval doesn’t sit in the wrong person’s queue — it follows the rule to whoever should now sign off. (Fields the rule already tests are covered by the field lock above; reroute-on-change is for fields that should re-route without being locked.)

  • Submitting & Recalling — the lock is applied at submit; recall (in the configurator’s Approvals panel) lifts it.
  • My Approvals — where the notified approver acts.
  • Approval Rules ▸ Policy — “editable after approval”, “reroute on change”, and the reason template are authored there.