This guide covers:
1 Story approval: what is it?
2 Where to find stories pending approval
3 Who can set up and manage story approval
4 Turning story approval on or off
5 Changing or updating approvers
What is story approval?
Story approval is a feature that can be turned on for individual educators that requires someone else to approve their stories before they are published and visible to family.
If story approval is turned on for an educator, when creating a story, instead of a Publish button the teacher will see a Submit for approval button:
Once a story is sent for approval the approving educator(s) will be sent a notification with a link to the story that needs approved. They can then make any changes (e.g. fix a typo) and publish the story on behalf of the author who sent it for approval.
💡 Story approval is off by default when a new educator starts at a service, and when a new service is set up on Storypark. Admins will need to turn this option on for each educator they require to be under approval.
Where can I find stories pending approval?
As well as receiving a notification, the approver(s) can find stories that need approving on their Pending page.
To get to this page from the Storypark web platform, click the menu button at the top left-hand side of the page and select Pending:
You can then select the story that needs approval, make any changes, or simply Publish.
From the Storypark for Educators app, tap the Me tab to see Pending under your name.
Who can control story approval?
Admins at the service can set up story approval for any other educators (admin or non-admin). An admin can also turn on approval for themselves if they want their stories peer-reviewed. Only admins can turn off story approval for themselves.
Admins can choose any educator at the service (admin or non-admin) to approve stories.
💡 We highly recommend that services always select more than one approver, so that educators stories still get published even if one approver is away.
Turn story approval on or off
In your service's Storypark page, click on the Teachers tab.
Find the educator whose stories require approval.
In the top right corner of their tile click the small arrow. From the drop-down menu select Turn on story approval. Admins can do this for themselves and for others.
A pop up will appear. Select the educators who will be assigned to approve that teacher's stories, and click Turn on approval:
If an educator no longer requires story approval by others, turn this off by clicking the arrow next to the educator's name and select Turn off story approval.
You can repeat these steps for each educator who require their stories to be approved.
Changing or updating approvers
If you need to change the story approvers of an educator, you will need to turn off story approval for that educator first and then turn it back on. When you turn it back on, it will allow you to reselect the story approver(s) for the educator.
An admin educator can reset the approval for all educators at the service.
Note: when you change the approvers for an educator, any currently pending stories authored by that educator who require approval will get sent back to their Draft stories folder. You will need to ask them to resubmit those, so their new approver(s) can access them.