How to interact with Slack's approval bot

Written by Owner

Updated at August 20th, 2025

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Table of Contents

How it works Understanding key features Processing a request With a decline button Without a decline button Details button Confirmation prompt dialog box Addressing unauthorized attempts Next steps

This article will explain how Slack’s Request Approval action appears in Slack and how to interact with it. Learn how to set up the Request Approval action.

How it works

Slack's Request Approval action takes information from a Zap trigger and sends it to a user (or multiple users) for approval through Slack. The approver can decide if they want to approve or decline the request. The decision will either continue or halt the Zap.

Understanding key features

You can control the approval workflow using these features:

Decline button: Display a “Decline” button with the approval request.
Details button: Include a “Details” button, giving approvers extra context with requests.
Confirmation prompt dialog box: Display a confirmation after a user approves or declines a request.

Processing a request

With a decline button Without a decline button

With a decline button

When your approval request is sent to a channel, it can be either approved or declined:

If you click Approve:
- A dialog box will appear. Click Approve to continue or Cancel to return to Slack's main screen.
- If you’re an authorized approver, the channel will show an approval message. It will include the Slack handle of the person who approved it.
If you click Decline:
- A dialog box will appear. Click Decline to continue or Cancel to return to Slack's main screen.
- If you're an authorized approver, the channel will show a decline message. It will include the Slack handle of the person who declined it.

Button labels may vary based on how the Zap was set up.

Without a decline button

Your approval request will only display the Approve option. When you click that button, a dialog box will appear:

If you click Approve, a message will appear in the channel to notify authorized approvers that the request was approved, including the Slack handle of the member who approved it.
If you click Cancel, no further actions will be run from your Zap.
- The request will remain pending approval.
- In the Zap history, the Zap run will appear with a status of Waiting / Delay until it's approved or the approval request expires.

Button labels may vary based on how the Zap was set up.

Details button

If the Slack approval workflow includes a “Details” button, any user can click it to open a new browser tab and access additional information, such as the full request details or any relevant criteria. The URL content linked to this button is determined by the person who set up the Zap.

The button label may vary based on how the Zap was set up.

Confirmation prompt dialog box

To help reduce the risk of accidental actions, you can configure the Slack Request Approval action to display a confirmation dialog box when an authorized user clicks Approve or Decline. This extra step provides a safety net, ensuring users intentionally finalize their decision.

Because the title, message, and button labels within the confirmation prompt are all customizable during setup, users might see different versions of this dialog box depending on how it has been configured.

Addressing unauthorized attempts

When setting up your Zap, you can optionally specify who should be able to respond to approval requests.

If a user not listed in the action step tries to approve or decline a request, Slack will display a private message to the user: “You are not authorized to approve or decline this request. Please contact the requestor.”
The Zap run associated with that request will remain in the Waiting / Delay status, and no response will be submitted to your Zap.

Next steps

Learn how to set up Slack’s Request Approval action.