TL;DR: To track pending approvals in Wrike, check your Inbox for approval notifications, or filter tasks/projects by Approval Status = Pending and Approver = Current User in Table view or a Dashboard widget.
Hey Community! 👋
In the last post, we covered how to create an approval in Wrike - walking through how to start one, add approvers, and set a due date so your team's sign-off process stays organized.
Now let's flip the perspective: what happens once you've been added as an approver? With approval requests potentially coming in from multiple projects, folders, and teammates, it's easy for one to slip through the cracks if you don't know where to look.
Thankfully, Wrike gives you a few reliable ways to track what's pending your decision so nothing gets lost.
Ways to track pending approvals
Check your Inbox
Every time you're added as an approver, you get a notification in your Wrike Inbox. This is the fastest way to catch new approval requests as they come in.
You can also use Inbox filters to surface approval notifications, so you can quickly find and focus on what matters most.
Use filters in Table view or My To-Do
- Open Table view for the space, folder, or project you want to check.
- Click Filters.
- Set Approval Status and Decision to Pending.
- Set Approver to Current User.
You can follow the same steps in the My To-Do folder.
This shows the tasks or projects waiting on your decision.
Create a Dashboard widget
- Go to Dashboards and open or create one.
- Click +Widget.
- Choose widget type as Table.
- Choose your item type (Task or Project, or both).
- Apply filters: Approver = Current User and Approver Decision = Pending.
- Save the widget.
You can also use the ready-made "My Pending Task Approvals", "My Overdue Task Approvals", "My Pending File Reviews", or "My Overdue File Reviews" widget templates.
⚠️ Note: These templates filter by the overall Approval Status (Pending/Overdue), not by your individual decision. So a task may still show up in these widgets even after you've submitted your approval, if other approvers haven't given their decision yet. More flexible approver logic is on the way - stay tuned! 👀
How to Give Your Decision
Once you've found the item:
- Open the task, folder, or project with the pending approval.
- Look for the approval panel near the description.
- Click the number of approvers to see who else is involved and what's still pending.
- Click Approve or Reject, and add a comment if you'd like to explain your decision (or click Don't send to skip it).
Real-world example
Say you're a Marketing Manager and five teammates tag you as an approver on different campaign assets throughout the week - some as tasks, some as projects.
Early in the week, you catch a couple of them via your Inbox notifications. But by Thursday, five is a lot to track manually, so you set up two Dashboard widgets (one for tasks, one for projects) filtered by Approver = Current User and Approval Status and Decision = Pending.
Now you open one Dashboard each morning and see everything still waiting on your decision, in one place - no digging through individual projects required.
Good to know
Nuance | Details |
|---|
Plan availability | Approval tracking features are only on Business, Pinnacle, and Apex plans. |
Mobile vs desktop | The mobile app has a dedicated "Approvals" section for on-the-go tracking. On desktop and web, Dashboard widgets and filters give you the same visibility, with even more customization options. |
Multiple approvers | Right now, all added approvers need to give their decision before the approval is marked complete. Stay tuned, more flexible approver logic may be on the way! 👀 |
Approval due dates | Dashboard widgets show the task's due date, not the approval's due date, by default. If your approval deadline differs from the task deadline, consider adding a custom field to track it manually. |
Learn more
Want the full picture on how approvals work in Wrike? Here's a good place to start:
Related posts in this series
📌 New to Approvals? Start with "How to Use Approvals in Wrike" to learn how to start, approve, and manage the process end to end.
📌 Approval decisions often come with comments and @mentions . See "How to Add Comments and @Mentions in Wrike " for the full picture.
📌 Curious where your approval requests actually show up? Check out "What is the Inbox in Wrike?"
Over to you:
How do you currently keep track of your pending approvals? Drop your setup below, it might help someone else in the community!
