Design approvals

Use design approvals for stronger quality control on your team.

Design approvals reduce the risk of unapproved changes going live to the site by controlling who can merge page branches to the main site. Junior designers can build independently on page branches, then request design approval from senior designers before merging their branch — allowing for more independent design time and more regulated main site edits.

Design approval roles

A team member’s site role determines if they’ll need approval or if they can approve a review.

Roles that require a review approval:

• Designer (needs approval)
• Custom roles without the “Make changes without approval” permission

Roles that can approve a review:

• Site manager
• Designer
• Reviewer
• Custom roles with the “Approve changes” permission

Workflow for requesting a branch review

If your site role requires design approval, you can only make edits in page branches and will have to get approval before merging your branch into the main site.

How to branch a page

1. Go to an existing page
2. Click the View tab
3. Click Create a page branch

You can also branch a page from the Pages panel. Once your page is branched, you can edit as normal.

How to request design approval for your branch

Once you’ve completed your branch’s design, you can request design approval. You won’t be able to add additional reviewers once the request is sent — you can instead cancel and resend the request.

1. Click the Branch tab
2. Click Request review
3. Add people to the Required reviewers and Optional reviewers fields
4. Add an optional message
5. Click Send request

You can continue making edits and changes to your branch after sending an approval request — the approver(s) will see any new changes made after the request was sent.

Additionally, your branch is auto-published to branch staging when your request a design approval.

How to check the status of your branch review

Your branch’s design approval status is displayed in the top bar and in the Pages panel:

• Pending approval — the request hasn’t been approved yet
• Changes requested — at least one reviewer requested updates to the branch
• Approved — the branch has been reviewed and approved

How to cancel a branch review request

1. Click the Pending approval status in the top bar
2. Click the Options icon
3. Choose Cancel request

How to merge your branch

Once your branch is reviewed and approved, you can merge your branch to the main site. If a required reviewer has requested changes, they’ll need to approve the branch before it can be merged.

Workflow for approving a branch review

As an approver, you can add teammates with roles that need approval to your site and provide design approvals for branched pages.

Design approvals are also useful for tracking the approval process. You can see which branches have been reviewed or approved and merge branches to the main site.

How to add teammates to your site

You can add teammates that will require approvals to your site. These teammates can only make edits in page branches and must get approval before merging their branch to the main site.

1. Go to Site settings > Site access
2. Click Add people
3. Choose a teammate that’s already in your Workspace (learn how to manage members)
4. Assign a role that requires approval (e.g., a custom role without “Make changes without approval”)
5. Click Save

How to review the branch changes

When a teammate requests a branch review, all reviewers they add will get a message at the email address attached to their Webflow account.

1. Open the email, then click Review in Webflow
2. Go to the Site Activity panel
3. Click Filter and check Only changes made on current branch to view the branch changes

How to approve branch changes or request revisions

1. Click Pending review in the top bar
2. Click Review
3. Choose Request changes to ask for revisions or Approve to accept the changes
4. Enter a message if you want to add optional commentary
5. Click Submit review