Approval Packs
An Approval Pack is a frozen, shareable bundle of approved documents that you assemble from a project and send to its participants. Packs are how you deliver the result of a project — the approval list tracks what's required; the approval pack is what you hand over.
Approval packs live on each project under Approval Packs.
What's in a pack
Each pack contains:
- Heading and body text — what recipients see at the top of the shared page.
- Project documents — the approver's own deliverables (the certificate, the stamped drawings, the approval letter).
- Received documents, grouped by document set — the inbound documents the approver is relying upon, with optional per-set description overrides.
- A public share link plus the option to email recipients directly.
How project documents and document sets flow into a pack
Approval packs consume two different streams of content from the project — and each is frozen differently.
Project documents
When you add project documents to a pack, ApprovIQ renders each one at pack-creation time using the project's current data:
- Each selected project document is merged from its document template, substituting current project information field values, approval list items, and document set memberships into the template's merge fields.
- The rendered result is exported as PDF and stored in the pack's own storage area as a frozen snapshot.
- The pack holds a reference to that snapshot — not to the live project document.
Later edits to the template, the project information fields, or the document set memberships do not affect packs that have already been created. If you need the changes in the pack, retract it and create a new one.
Because project documents render from their templates at pack-creation time, make sure any unsaved edits are saved before starting the pack wizard. What's in the template at the moment you click Create is what will be frozen into the pack.
Document sets of received documents
Received documents (the applicant's uploads) enter a pack by document set. For each document set you include:
- The set's name is copied into the pack as
source_set_nameand frozen — renaming the set in the project later does not affect existing packs. - You can write a pack-specific description override for that set, letting you describe the group's role in this particular pack without touching the project's live document-set description.
- You choose which documents from the set to include. The pack stores references to those document IDs; recipients see the original uploaded files when they click through.
This split — name and description frozen, document content referenced live — means the pack's grouping and wording never drift, while individual received documents remain accessible through the same proxy routes the project uses.
End-to-end snapshot behaviour
Putting the two together: once a pack is created, its project documents are immutable PDF renderings from the moment of creation, and its document-set groupings have frozen names and descriptions. Received documents themselves continue to be served through the project's document storage, so they pick up whatever was originally uploaded and cannot be re-pointed to a different upload.
Approval pack templates
If you're going to send similar packs across many projects, configure an Approval Pack Template under Project Creation Setup → Approval Pack Templates. A template pre-fills the heading, body, and the set of document sets to include. When you create a pack from a project that has a template attached (via its project type), the form is already populated — you only need to tweak what's different for this particular project.
Who can create and manage packs
Creating, retracting, and emailing approval packs are available only to approvers and co-approvers of the project. Applicants and collaborators can view packs that have already been created (the pack appears on the project for every member), but they cannot create new packs, edit existing ones, or retract them.
The public share link works without any login — anyone with the URL can view the pack until it is retracted.
Sharing and retracting
Packs are distributed two ways:
- Public link — every pack has a unique shareable URL. Anyone with the link can view the pack; no login required.
- Email — from the pack's detail view, send the link directly to participants.
If you need to pull a pack back, use Retract. Retracted packs return a "no longer available" page at the public link. Retracting does not delete the pack — you can see it in the retracted state on the project.
Approval Pack vs Approval List
It's easy to confuse the two — both live on a project and both deal with documents. Here's the distinction:
| Approval List | Approval Pack | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Tracks what the project still needs | Hands off what the project has approved |
| Lifecycle | Living — items move through statuses as documents are submitted, reviewed, and approved | Frozen — a snapshot sent to recipients |
| Audience | Applicant, approver, collaborators | Whoever you share the pack with |
| Editable after creation? | Yes, continuously | No, only retract |
You can produce any number of approval packs from a single project — for example, one pack per stage of the project, or one pack per reviewing body.