Opportunity publishing approval

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
    • Summarize
    Summarized using AI
    This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.

    Summary of Opportunity publishing approval

    The Opportunity Marketplace's publishing approval framework streamlines the process for Opportunity Owners to submit drafts for approval and receive timely notifications about the approval status. Available from version 2.3 onward, this framework automates the approval workflow for gig, volunteer, and project opportunity types, helping ensure that opportunities meet organizational standards before publishing.

    Show full answer Show less

    Key Features

    • Submission and Notifications: Opportunity Owners can submit drafts directly from the Create an Opportunity form and monitor approval status. They receive email notifications upon approval or rejection.
    • Approver Workflow: Opportunity Approvers receive email notifications and assigned approval tasks. They can review, approve, or reject drafts with comments through the notification interface.
    • Configurable Approval Rules: Admins can configure approver users, assign approval groups, and set alternative approval scenarios, such as requiring multiple approvals or rejections.
    • Automated Subflows: Each out-of-the-box opportunity type has a dedicated subflow that automates the approval process based on set conditions (e.g., number of participants or time commitment).

    Approval Workflow Details

    • Conditions for Approval:
      • Gig opportunities: Approval required if the time commitment is 20 or more hours per week. The opportunity owner’s manager is assigned as an approver along with others.
      • Volunteer opportunities: Approval needed if there are 20 or more participants.
      • Project opportunities: Approval required if there are 5 or more participants.
    • Default Approval Behavior: One approval publishes the opportunity; one rejection reverts it to draft and notifies the owner with feedback. Admins may adjust these thresholds.
    • Assignment of Flows: The Project approval flow is assigned by default; admins must manually assign flows for gig and volunteer opportunity types. Custom opportunity types can reuse existing flows.
    • Approvers Management: By default, the "OPM Opportunity Approvers" group handles approvals. Admins can add users or assign approvers per opportunity type to tailor review responsibilities.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    This framework enables ServiceNow customers to efficiently control and automate the publishing of opportunity listings, ensuring quality and compliance through configurable approval workflows. It reduces manual tracking, provides clear communication via notifications, and supports organizational policies with customizable approval requirements. Admins gain flexibility to tailor workflows and approvers to their business needs, improving governance and operational efficiency in managing gig, volunteer, and project opportunities.

    The Opportunity Marketplace's publishing approval framework streamlines the approval process, allowing Opportunity Owners to submit drafts for approval and receive notifications upon approval or rejection.

    In versions 2.3 and later, Opportunity Marketplace includes an out-of-the-box framework to automate the publishing approval workflow for the gig, volunteer, and project opportunity types.
    • The Opportunity Owner can submit a draft opportunity for approval from the Create an opportunity form and monitor the status of the approval request. They receive an email notification when the Opportunity Approver approves or rejects the draft.
    • The Opportunity Approver is notified of the approval request via email and an assigned approval task. They can review the opportunity draft and either approve or reject with comments from the notification interface.
    • Admins can configure approver users and additional approval rules.

    Approval workflow

    Each out-of-the-box opportunity type (gig, volunteer, and project) has a respective subflow to facilitate the approval workflow. Each subflow has default configurations, which determine the conditions under which the opportunity is sent for approval.

    1. If the conditions are met, the subflow requests approval from the users listed in the Opportunity Type Auxiliary [sn_opp_market_opportunity_type_aux] table for that respective opportunity type.
    2. If an approver approves the opportunity, the system notifies the Opportunity owner and publishes the opportunity.
    3. If the approver rejects the opportunity, the system reverts the opportunity to draft state and notifies the Opportunity owner of the approver’s feedback, which they can implement and resubmit for approval.
    Note:
    By default, only one approval is necessary for the system to publish an opportunity, and only one rejection is necessary to prevent an opportunity from being published, however the admin can configure alternative approval scenarios, such as requiring a greater number of required approvals or at minimum two rejections. For more information, see the Approvers section below.

    The following diagram provides a visual of the approval workflow:Visual overview of the approval steps described above

    The following describes the default configurations for the subflows, which can be modified in the Workflow studio.
    Table 1. Default settings for out-of-the-box subflows
    Subflow Settings description
    Gig opportunity posting & editing approval This subflow sends the opportunity for approval if it requires a time commitment of 20 or more hours per week (line 2). Unlike the other two subflows, this one assigns the opportunity owner’s manager as the approver (line 7-10) in addition to the listed approvers.
    Volunteer opportunity posting & editing approval This subflow requires approval for the opportunity if the total number of participants is twenty or more (line 1).
    Project opportunity posting & editing approval This subflow requires approval for the opportunity if the total number of participants is five or more (line 1).
    Note:
    Only the Project opportunity posting & editing approval flow is assigned to the project opportunity type out-of-the-box; for volunteer and gig opportunity types, the admin must manually assign the flow. For the steps on assigning the approval flows, see .
    For custom opportunity types, the admin can reuse either the Project opportunity posting & editing approval or Volunteer opportunity posting & editing approval flows, as they support opportunities with multiple roles.

    Approvers

    If your instance has demo data loaded, the group OPM Opportunity Approvers is assigned to the gig, volunteer, and project opportunity types. An admin can add users to the OPM Opportunity Approvers group to review all opportunity drafts. Alternatively, the admin can define approvers for a specific opportunity type. For the steps on assigning approvers to an opportunity type, see step 4 of .

    While the default subflow requires only one approval or rejection, the admin can configure alternative approval scenarios, such as requiring a greater number of required approvals to publish an opportunity or at minimum two rejections to prevent the opportunity from being published.Under the Ask for Approval action, users can modify the rule regarding how many users must approve or reject an opportunity