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Escalate an approval that has waited more than 3 days

When a document sits on one approval stage past your limit, email the approver's manager and bump the item's priority — an Age of Stage trigger on the approval process plus Send E-mail and Change Priority actions, checked every hour.

Catalog administratorsContent Central 7.8+20 minutesVerified 2026-09-05

Before you begin

  • An approval process exists on the document type (see Set up an approval process)
  • A Workflow Access email template for the escalation message (see Customize notification message templates)

When you're done, any document that has sat on a given approval stage for more than three days gets its priority raised and an email goes to the person who can unblock it — automatically, every hour, until it moves.

The planDocument type scope
  1. Trigger
    1. Approval Processes › Age of StageApproval Process: your process · Stage: the one that stalls · Age: 3 Days · Process Interval: Every Hour · Reprocess Matching Records After: 1 Days
  2. Actions, in this order
    1. Approval Process - Change PriorityPriority: Highest
    2. Send E-mailMessage Template: "Approval overdue" (Email, Workflow Access)
  3. Rule
    1. "Stage waited 3 days → escalate", enabled

Before you build: check what's already there

Open the document type's Triggers list. If you see system records named like [Your Process] Stage 1 Deadline with Type Approval Processes and Sub-Type StageAge, those belong to the approval process's own deadline settings — they can't be deleted and you shouldn't edit them. Build your escalation alongside them with its own name.

Build the trigger

  1. Go to Administration > Catalogs & Document Types, pick the Catalog and Document Type, click the Workflow tile, then Triggers > New Trigger.

  1. Type: Approval Processes and Age of Stage. Trigger Name: Stage 1 waited 3 days.

  1. Approval-Process Evaluation: Single Approval Process. Approval Process: pick the process. Stage: the stage that tends to stall — usually the first.

  1. Age: 3 Days.

  1. Process Interval: Every Hour (on Minute 0). Process Start: On First Interval.

  1. Reprocess Matching Records After: 1 Days — a still-stuck document escalates again tomorrow, not every hour.

  1. Click Save.

What you should see: a Scheduled trigger in the list. It can't fire before the first interval passes.

Build the actions

  1. Click Actions > New Action. Type: Approval Process - Change Priority. Action Name: Raise to highest priority. Priority: Highest. Save.

  1. New Action again. Type: Send E-mail. Action Name: Email manager — approval overdue. Scope Type: where your template lives; Message Template: the escalation template, whose To is the manager and whose body uses insert codes for the document name and how long it has waited. Save.

Wire the rule

  1. Click Rules > New Rule. Rule Name: Stage waited 3 days → escalate.

  1. Add Trigger: Stage 1 waited 3 days. Add Action: Raise to highest priority, then Add Action: Email manager — approval overdue. Apply.

Test it

  1. Start the approval on one test document and leave it untouched. To avoid waiting three days, temporarily set the trigger's Age: to 5 Minutes and Process Interval: to Every 5 Minutes; restore both afterward.

  1. After the interval, check the manager's inbox and the approver's Queues > Approval tab.

What you should see: the email, and the item now sorted to the top of the approver's queue with the raised priority. The document's View History lists both actions. If nothing fires, A document is stuck in — or skipped — approval and A scheduled workflow didn't run cover the two halves of the problem.

Variations

Want this insteadChange this
Watch the whole process, not one stageSub-type Age of Process instead of Age of Stage
Remind the approver first, escalate to the manager laterTwo triggers (1 Days and 3 Days), two rules, two templates
Skip the approver entirely after a weekAction Approval Process - Change Stage with Stage Change: Approve to Member — only if your policy allows workflow to approve on someone's behalf
Watch a group of processes at onceApproval-Process Evaluation: Approval-Process Group and pick the group
Also send an in-product messageAction Send Internal Message
Count items rather than age ("more than 20 waiting")Trigger sub-type Items in Stage with Minimum Items on the Stage: