ApproveThis manages your Pivotal Tracker approvals.

When Agile Meets Approval Authority

Let's be real: software teams using Pivotal Tracker don't have time for bureaucratic bullshit. You're trying to ship features, not chase down signatures. Meanwhile, finance and ops teams need guardrails to prevent chaos. Enter ApproveThis – the missing link that keeps agile teams moving fast without giving compliance teams heart attacks.

Why This Combo Doesn't Suck

Pivotal Tracker organizes work. ApproveThis organizes decisions. Together, they create what engineers secretly crave: predictable processes that don't require 17 Slack pings to get shit done.

For Product Managers Who Hate Being Human CRON Jobs

Imagine this: Your dev team finishes a story. Instead of you manually creating an approval request for the next phase, ApproveThis automatically:

• Routes the completion alert to QA lead
• Escalates to engineering director if not approved in 12hrs
• Creates the next sprint's stories in Pivotal only after sign-off

Real-world example: A SaaS company reduced sprint handoff delays from 2 days to 4 hours by connecting story completions to approval workflows.

For Finance Teams That Don't Speak "Agile"

When Pivotal stories involve contractors or cloud costs, ApproveThis adds budget checks before work starts:

• Auto-calculate dev hours × rate from story points
• Route for CFO approval if over $5k
• Block story activation in Pivotal until greenlit

An e-commerce platform used this to cut unauthorized cloud spend by 63% last quarter.

Three Ways This Integration Actually Works

1. From Approval to Action in One Click

Use case: Marketing team needs new tracking implemented. Approval gets stuck in legal review for weeks.

Fix: Legal approves in ApproveThis → Zapier auto-creates Pivotal project with compliance checklist baked into stories.

2. Kill Scope Creep Before It Starts

Problem: Sales promises custom features that devs didn't budget for.

Solution: New Pivotal stories trigger approval requests to engineering leads. No sign-off? Story stays in icebox.

3. Client Approvals That Don't Require Teaching Them Pivotal

Scenario: Agency needs client sign-off on sprint deliverables.

Win: Completed stories auto-generate client-facing approval requests via email. Clients click approve → story moves to "Accepted" in Pivotal. No logins needed.

Setting This Up Without Losing Your Mind

If you can make coffee, you can connect these tools:

1. Grab your Zapier account (free tier works)
2. Pick a trigger from either app (e.g., "New Story" in Pivotal)
3. Add ApproveThis action (e.g., "Create Request with Budget Check")
4. Test with a real story → approval → action chain

Pro tip: Start with one critical workflow (like budget approvals) before automating everything.

Who Actually Benefits From This?

Dev Teams Get Fewer Dumb Requests

ApproveThis acts as a bouncer for Pivotal. That "urgent" feature from sales? Doesn't hit your board until it's properly scoped and funded.

PMs Stop Playing Telephone

Automated approval trails mean you're not manually updating Jira, Asana, and the Excel sheet finance loves.

Execs See Real-Time Risk Control

Dashboards show approved vs. rogue initiatives. Finally understand where engineering time actually goes.

But Wait – There's More (Without The Infomercial Cheese)

ApproveThis brings some quiet advantages your team might not expect:

Vacation Mode: Dev lead OOO? Approval rights auto-shift to backup without breaking Pivotal workflows.

Math You Don't Have To Do: Dynamic fields auto-calculate story points → dev costs → approval thresholds.

Audit Trails That Don't Lie: Every Pivotal story change ties back to an approval record. SOC2 auditors will actually smile.

The Bottom Line for Companies Over 50 People

If your Pivotal projects constantly get derailed by:

- Unapproved scope changes
- Budget surprises
- "Who approved this?!" meetings

...then manually bridging ApproveThis and Pivotal is like using a flip phone to manage SpaceX launches.

Cool. How Do We Start?

Option 1: Grab a free ApproveThis trial, connect to Pivotal via Zapier in 15 mins, and test with one sprint.

Option 2: Book a 20-min demo where we'll show how other engineering teams killed approval delays.

Either way, stop letting decision chaos slow down your Pivotal velocity. You've got better things to build.