Explanations
Notifications and Approvals
Understand approval workflows and notification systems in SupporterBase
SupporterBase uses a mix of notifications and approval workflows to keep group activities managed.
1. Point people explained
Default behaviour
- All admins receive all approval notifications for all groups.
- All group captains also receive notifications by default (they can opt out via their profile settings).
Point people
- You can nominate specific admins as point people for each group.
- Point people receive all requests to approve:
- SMS blasts
- Email blasts
- New events
- Only admins can be set as point people.
Special cases
- Only admins can approve adding new captains or vice-captains.
- If only a captain is set as point person (no admins listed), SupporterBase automatically recognises when admin approval is required and routes the request to all admins.
How to set point people
We covered setting up point people as part of the group creation and the advanced groups guides. If you need to edit the point people for a group:
- Navigate to your group via Supporter Groups > [Your Group].
- Click Edit Details.
- Choose either all admins or specific admins as point people.
2. Configuring approval notification emails
- Automatic approval request emails sent to point people can be customised.
- Go to Settings > Configurations > Mailers to edit.
- This controls the template and content of the notification emails.
3. Other ways to approve actions
All admins and group leaders can see pending actions in Pending Approvals.
- Found in the left-hand navigation: Pending Approvals (with a red bell + number badge when items are waiting).
- Or under Settings > Pending Approvals.
Actions that may need approval include:
- Draft events
- Email blasts
- SMS blasts
- Member removals
- Adding new captains/vice-captains
When you open Pending Approvals:
- Choose the type of approval from a dropdown menu (e.g. "SMS Blasts", "Member Removals").
- A number next to each type shows how many items need approval.
Best practices
Tips for smooth approval workflows
- Always set at least one admin as a point person. Even if captains are managing a group, an admin should be listed to avoid missed approvals for captain/vice-captain changes.
- Use "All admins" for large or high-activity groups. Ensures coverage if the usual point person is unavailable.
- Use "Specific point people" for smaller or focused groups. Keeps notification emails manageable by limiting them to the right admins.
- Encourage captains to adjust their notification preferences. Captains can opt out of notifications if they don't want every approval email, but they should know they can still approve inside SupporterBase.
- Regularly check Pending Approvals. Don't rely only on email notifications. The Pending Approvals menu (red bell icon) is the single source of truth.
- Customise notification emails (Mailers). Tailor the subject line and content to make approval requests easy to spot in inboxes.