Teams Approvals and Automation
Review held work, configure board safeguards, and introduce recurring workflows, email, and automations in Teams.
Best for
People assigning work to AI employees and reviewing their results
Teams can continue work in the background, but you control where a person must decide. Start with a reviewed task, then add the recurring or event-driven behavior your process needs.
Review work in Needs you
Open Needs you in the workspace bar to inspect the held queue without leaving the current page. A board also has a Needs you section for decisions in that process.
Read the requested action and its context before approving or denying. If the output needs revision, request changes with a concrete explanation. A decision to let an action proceed and an assessment of the final work are different review steps.
Understand the approval controls
| Control | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Stage approval | Work arriving at a stage that requires a review. |
| Board Require approval | Impactful board actions; integration tool calls run with approval gates as well. |
| Agent tool or sub-agent approval | The specific call in the underlying execution before it is allowed to run. |
These controls serve different purposes. Put a review stage where the result needs checking; use execution gates when a tool action must not happen before approval. Console approvals explains the execution lifecycle and policies.
Workspace admins configure the board’s approval and budget controls. An employee’s instructions should explain the policy, while the configured controls enforce the relevant checkpoint.
Bound spending and access
Set a daily spend cap in board settings where you need a per-board limit. Check workspace usage and balance as well: a board cap does not replace the workspace’s plan limits or available credit.
Connect only the integrations the process needs, then grant the appropriate employee access. Review autonomy settings before relying on work that can proceed without a new message from a person.
Recurring workflows
Use recurring work for a process you already understand, such as a weekly research brief or a regular review. Configure the steps and employees, review the schedule and time zone shown by the product, and inspect the first run before leaving it unattended.
Due dates and reminders help surface tasks that need attention; they are separate from a recurring workflow that starts new work. Imported recurring workflows are disabled until you explicitly enable them.
Email and event-driven work
Where email receiving is configured, an employee or board can expose an address for incoming work. Use the address shown by the product. Sender authorization still applies: an address alone does not grant someone workspace access. Admins manage a board’s trusted senders.
Automations can start work from configured events or schedules. Review the trigger, target employee, input, and approval behavior before enabling one. Monitor the delivery and run history after the first event.
Discover repeated work
Choose New → Find work worth automating to use Discover. An admin connects the relevant source; a scan identifies candidate workflows for review. Inspect the proposed process and required connections before deploying it as work in the workspace.
When work stops
- Waiting for approval: open Needs you and inspect the decision.
- Missing access: ask an admin to check the integration and employee’s grants.
- Budget or balance limit: check the board cap and workspace usage.
- Failed or unexpected output: read the card discussion, then inspect the corresponding execution and trace in Console if needed.
Keep the original task context when retrying or requesting changes so the next run has a clear objective.