Story Approval lets your site review learning stories before they are published. Site Admins can enable the feature, choose who can review stories and control whether reviewers can access all pending stories or only stories from selected teachers.
đ Site Admins only â If you donât see these options, you donât have permission. Ask someone with site admin access at your centre to help.
Looking for how Story Approval works day to day?
See How to Use Story Approval to learn how teachers submit stories, how reviewers approve or return them, and how approval and rework comments work.
How Story Approval is set up
Once Story Approval is enabled, you can:
Choose which teachers can review stories.
Control which teachers' pending stories each reviewer can access.
Set the send time for daily pending story notification digests.
Allow selected teachers to publish without review using Auto Approval.
Teachers who require approval will submit their stories for review instead of publishing them directly.
Only one reviewer needs to approve a story before it is published.
Enable Story Approval
Go to Settings > Site Settings > Site Features.
Find Story Approval.
Enable the feature.
Refresh the page.
Once enabled, a Story Approval section will appear in the Site Settings list.
Set up reviewers and their access
Go to Settings > Site Settings > Story Approval to choose your reviewers and control which pending stories they can access.
To make a teacher a reviewer:
Find the teacher you want to make a reviewer.
Select Is a Reviewer.
Decide whether they should review all pending stories or only stories from specific teachers.
How you configure the reviewer determines what appears on their Pending Stories page:
Reviewer setup: | Pending stories they can access: |
Reviewer with no teachers assigned | All pending stories at the site |
Reviewer assigned to one or more teachers | Only pending stories from those assigned teachers |
Site Admin who is also a reviewer, with Filter Pending Stories off | All pending stories, regardless of reviewer assignments |
Site Admin who is also a reviewer, with Filter Pending Stories on | Only pending stories from teachers they are assigned to review |
Note: Pending story access and notifications work differently. Reviewers only receive notifications for teachers they are specifically assigned to review. If a reviewer has no assigned teachers, they will not receive pending story notifications, even if they can access those stories from the Pending Stories page.
Important: For reviewers who are not Site Admins, assigning them to even one teacher changes their access. They will no longer see pending stories from teachers they are not assigned to.
Assign reviewers to specific teachers
If a reviewer should only access pending stories from particular teachers:
Go to Settings > Site Settings > Story Approval.
Find the teacher whose stories should be reviewed.
Select their reviewer or reviewers. (You can assign up to three reviewers to each teacher)
Repeat this for other teachers as needed.
If a reviewer should be able to review pending stories from across the whole site, leave them unassigned.
Limit pending stories for Site Admin reviewers
Site Admin access normally allows a Site Admin who is also a reviewer to see all pending stories, even when they have only been assigned specific teachers.
Use Filter Pending Stories if you want their Pending Stories page to follow their reviewer assignments instead.
To enable this:
Open the Site Admin's teacher profile.
Select Edit Profile.
Once Site Admin is ticked, tick Filter Pending Stories.
Select Save.
With Filter Pending Stories enabled, they will only see pending stories from teachers they are specifically assigned to review. This setting only changes what they see on the Pending Stories page. It does not remove their Site Admin role or change their other permissions.
Note: While a Site Admin reviewer with Filter Pending Stories off can still see all pending stories, but they only receive notifications for teachers they are specifically assigned to review.
Set the pending story notification time
Reviewers only receive pending story notifications for teachers they are specifically assigned to review. If more than one reviewer is assigned to a teacher, each assigned reviewer is notified according to their own notification setting. A reviewer with no assigned teachers will not receive pending story notifications.
Reviewers can choose how often they receive these notifications in their personal notification settings:
Immediate â Sends an email when a new story is submitted for their review. This is the default.
Digest â Sends one daily email for pending stories submitted since the previous digest.
Never â Does not send pending story notification emails.
If a reviewer selects Digest, Site Admins can control what time the daily email is sent:
Go to Settings > Site Settings > Stories.
Find Pending Story Notification Send Time.
Select the time for the daily digest.
Save your changes.
The selected time applies to all reviewers on your site who use the Digest notification option.
Note: Notification settings do not affect access to the Pending Stories page. Reviewers can go to Children > Pending Stories whenever they log in to check for stories they can review.
See Manage Your Personal Notification Settings for instructions on changing a reviewer's notification preference.
Allow a teacher to publish without approval
Use Auto Approval when a teacher does not need their stories reviewed before publication.
To enable Auto Approval:
Open the teacher's profile.
Select Edit Profile.
Enable Auto Approval.
Select Save.
When Auto Approval is enabled, the teacher can publish stories directly instead of submitting them for review.
Review your Story Approval setup
Once Story Approval is configured, check that:
Everyone who should review stories is marked as Is a Reviewer.
Reviewers who need access to all pending stories have no teacher assignments.
Reviewers who should only see selected teachers have the correct assignments.
Site Admin reviewers have Filter Pending Stories enabled where their access should be limited.
The Pending Story Notification Send Time is appropriate for reviewers using Digest notifications.
Auto Approval is enabled only for teachers who can publish without review.
It is useful to review these settings when team members or responsibilities change.
What happens next
After setup, teachers and reviewers manage Story Approval as part of their normal story workflow.
Teachers who require approval will see Submit for Approval when completing a story. The story then appears in Pending Stories for reviewers who have access to it. Reviewers are notified according to their personal notification settings and can approve the story, edit it on the teacher's behalf or return it for rework.
See How to Use Story Approval for the full teacher and reviewer workflow, including pending story notifications, approval comments and rework comments.