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Pivotal Tracker Integration

ApproveThis manages your Pivotal Tracker Integration approvals.

April 17, 2025

Integration Category: Project Management

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.

🥳

Integrate with Pivotal Tracker Integration and get 90 days of ApproveThis for free.

After you create a Zapier integration, please email us at support@approve-this.com with your account name and we'll add 3 months of ApproveThis to your account. Limit one redemption per account.

Learn More

Best Approval Workflows for Pivotal Tracker

Suggested workflows (and their Zapier components) for Pivotal Tracker

Create Pivotal Tracker projects when requests are approved

Ensure every approved project request leads to action with this automation. Whenever a request in ApproveThis is approved, a new project is created in Pivotal Tracker, ensuring prompt initiation of project activities. *Note: Ensure necessary project details are included in the approval request to facilitate project creation.*

Zapier Components

Trigger

A Request Is Approved/Denied

Triggers when a request is approved or denied.

Pivotal Tracker Logo

Action

Create Project

Creates a new project.

Create approval requests for new Pivotal Tracker stories

Streamline your story review process by automating approval requests. Each time a new story is added in Pivotal Tracker, an approval request is created in ApproveThis, ensuring all stories adhere to quality and scope requirements. *Note: Ensure story details align with approval parameters for smooth processing.*

Zapier Components

Pivotal Tracker Logo

Trigger

New Story

Trigger when a new story is added in a project.

Action

Create Request

Creates a new request, probably with input from previous steps.

Create Pivotal Tracker stories for new approval requests

Automatically convert approved requests into actionable stories in Pivotal Tracker. When a new approval request is initiated in ApproveThis, a corresponding story is created, ensuring no delays in task implementation. *Note: Ensure the request details sufficiently describe the story requirements for effective action.*

Zapier Components

Trigger

New Request

Triggers when a new approval request workflow is initiated.

Pivotal Tracker Logo

Action

Create Story

Creates a new story in a project.