Getting sign-off from a client, consultant or certifier has always been the slowest part of a drawing workflow. Most tools need everyone to create an account first. We've taken the opposite approach: your approvers get a branded email, click the link, and sign off — no account, no password, no friction.
What shipped
Token-based approval pages. Add anyone as an approver on any annotation. Doclio generates a magic link and emails it through your org's branding. When they click through, they see the annotation in context, the drawing preview, existing comments and attachments, and a clean APPROVE / REJECT panel — all without signing in.
Attachments from approvers. External reviewers can upload supporting files (photos, marked-up PDFs, spec sheets) alongside their decision. Uploads are rate-limited and scoped to the approval token, so there's no risk of credential-free write access to the rest of your project.
Approver comments promoted to the record. When an approver responds, their decision is saved as a permanent [Approved] or [Rejected] comment on the annotation, signed with their email. The audit trail survives every future revision.
Resend + reminder button. If someone hasn't responded, the pending-approver row in the Drawing Viewer now shows a one-click resend. No need to re-add them.
Multi-drawing shares. Need a client to review a subset of your project? Share specific drawings rather than the whole project — one invite, one link, the client sees only what you selected. Works for tagged or hand-picked drawing groups.
Why it matters
Most construction approval tools still require your external stakeholders to sign up, verify email, set a password, then learn a new UI just to click APPROVE. That friction kills response times.
Doclio's token flow means your project engineer, local authority contact, or client-side PM can respond from their phone while stuck in traffic. No app, no login, no fuss. You still get the full audit trail: who approved, when, from which IP, with what comments or attachments.
Security posture
Approval tokens are single-annotation and scoped. A token lets the holder view the annotation, drawing preview, and add a decision — nothing more. Uploads are capped at 25 MB per file and 10 uploads per hour per token. File types are allowlisted. The whole flow runs on a dedicated anonymous Supabase client so a logged-in user's session never interferes with the anonymous RLS policies.
How to try it
- Open any drawing and create an approval-type annotation (or convert an existing one).
- Click ADD APPROVER and enter an email.
- Doclio sends the branded invitation automatically.
- You'll see their response land back in the annotation the moment they click APPROVE or REJECT.
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External approvals are available on every Doclio plan. Start a free project to send your first approval in under two minutes.