A post prepared by an agency or by headquarters may have to pass the brand's review before it goes live. That approval usually lives in email threads, screenshots and chat groups. Which version was approved, who said what, and whether the text changed after approval become impossible to trace later.
DealerBot's client approval portal moves this process into a single flow. The agency sends content to the brand for approval; the brand uses its own account to preview the content, approve it, request changes or leave a comment. This article explains how the flow works, what the brand can and cannot see, and how approval can lock publishing.
Sending for approval: the round logic
On the agency side, a draft or a scheduled post is selected and sent for client approval. You can send posts one by one or in bulk. Every submission opens a new round. If the same post has an older round still waiting, it is withdrawn automatically, so the brand never has two different versions in front of it at once.
The agency team follows waiting, change-requested, approved and withdrawn rounds in one inbox. When account owners are assigned, notifications reach them first; if the list is empty, managers and staff with access to the dealer are informed. There is a separate internal comment field for agency-only notes, and those comments never reach the brand.
This structure helps the agency in two ways. Because every round has its own record, you can later trace how many times a post was revised and what changed in each round. The brand, in turn, always has a single current version in front of it.
- Single or bulk submission
- Every submission opens a new round and withdraws the older waiting one
- Agency-only internal comments, invisible to the brand
- An inbox with waiting, change-requested and approved rounds
What happens on the brand side
The brand signs in with its own client account and sees the approvals waiting for it. It previews the content, compares it with the previous round and decides: approve or request changes. A written explanation is mandatory when requesting changes, so the agency does not have to guess what needs fixing. Before deciding, comments can be written and images can be attached to them, for instance to show how a requested correction should look.
The decision comes only from the brand. Agency or administrator accounts cannot approve on the brand's behalf, which keeps the record clear about whose decision it reflects. If several posts are waiting, the brand can also approve them in bulk.
A client account sees only the brands assigned to it. It cannot reach another brand's content, campaigns or reports. The account is read-only: the brand does not create, edit or publish posts; the only things it can write are an approval decision, comments and comment attachments.
- Preview and comparison with the previous round
- Approval, change request (explanation required) and comments
- Attaching images to comments
- Bulk approval
When approval is required, publishing is locked
You can use approval as information or make it mandatory. When approval is mandatory for a dealer, a post is not published until its latest round is approved. If the content changes after approval, the approval lapses and a new round is needed. This way no silent difference can arise between the text the brand approved and the text that goes live.
One detail deserves attention: approval does not set a publishing date. Even if an undated draft is approved, it is not published by itself; a date has to be given. The interface warns you about undated posts and marks an approved but undated post in the list. Setting a date after approval does not invalidate the approval.
The purpose of the lock should not be to slow the agency down. Approval deadline reminders reduce the chance of the brand forgetting pending items: the brand is notified as the deadline approaches and the agency once it has passed. A stuck approval stays visible and gets discussed before a scheduled post is missed.
When you turn on mandatory approval, make sure the brand has at least one client user. Without one, posts can never be approved. A practical suggestion is to keep the requirement off in the first rounds and turn it on once the flow has settled.
- If mandatory, an unapproved post is not published
- If content changes after approval, a new round is required
- Approval does not give a publishing date; the date is scheduled separately
Web, mobile and notifications
The client portal works with the same account in a web browser and in the mobile app. Notifications go out for content sent for approval, the brand's decision, new comments, an approaching approval deadline, the monthly report, and the start and end of ads. In-app notifications are always on; mobile notifications and email can be switched off in the user's profile preferences. On mobile, tapping a notification opens the relevant approval screen directly.
Beyond approvals, the brand side also has a read-only calendar of published and planned content, the monthly social media report and an ad summary. For an agency working with many brands, this lets the brand look at its own screen instead of answering the same questions by email again and again. The performance presentation, which includes organization-wide averages, is not sent to the brand.
The client portal is enabled for your organization during setup. To see how it works on your own brands, request a demo; you can also find details on the /en/platform page.
- Web and mobile with the same account
- In-app, mobile and email notifications
- Read-only calendar, monthly report and ad summary
