Governance authority and delegated decisions¶
An approval body is a named group that an organization uses to define who may participate in governed decisions and who may sign on its behalf. Examples include a procurement panel or an executive committee. Its membership, chairperson, minimum quorum, voting access and signing access are maintained together so that work can refer to a specific authority.
Draft availability: approval-body administration and authority reads are implemented in the inspected backend. The newer Final Screens designs describe the intended journey. The inspected frontend presents sample bodies and local success messages; connected saving, permissions and deployed availability still need verification. These pages cover approval-body administration first. The synchronization explanation also covers organization-head membership defaults, delayed updates and recovery. The shared-work destination explanation covers committees, chairpersons and direct/delegated signing recipients. The governance outcome explanation covers six record types, supporting evidence, derived verifier identity and corrections. The reporting and recovery guide explains how saved outcomes become reporting evidence, daily inventories and recoverable revisions. The assistant explanation covers approval-body reads, governed proposals and execution recovery. The data-lifecycle explanation covers export, deletion and their effect on retained governance evidence. Use the recovery guide to distinguish uncertain changes, authority reads and delayed reporting. Pending approval changes explains what Workflow does after qualifying authority notifications. Downstream reporting acceptance, complete HiveAI orchestration, hosted workflow refresh and environment delivery remain under reconciliation.
What the terms mean¶
| Term | Meaning | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Approval body | The group and its purpose | Correct body, reference and active state |
| Member | A person with a membership period | Whether the membership is effective now |
| Chairperson | The member assigned to lead the body | The effective date and any change in membership |
| Minimum quorum | The required number of eligible voting members | Compare against active voters, not total members or signers |
| Voting access | Whether a member may participate as a voter | Membership and voting access are separate |
| Signing access | Whether a member has direct signing authority | Being a voter or chairperson does not automatically grant this |
| Signing delegation | A period in which another person may sign through a member's authority | The delegate, originating member and both authority windows |
For example, five members with four voters, two direct signers and a quorum of three have enough eligible voters. Two signers do not make quorum insufficient. This still does not establish that a particular request has received three approvals, that a document was signed, or that an underlying business decision is complete.
How this supports the business¶
Administrators maintain the body and its authority. Members, chairs and delegates use that authority in the work assigned to them. Managers check readiness before routing work; executives can establish accountable decision structures and identify gaps that would delay work. Support helps distinguish missing access, unavailable staff details, ineffective dates and an uncertain save.
The approval-body register describes configuration and current authority. Actual request work, document handling and activity history have their own outcomes and access rules. Creating a body does not create an approval request or cast a vote. Granting signing authority does not place a signature on a document.
Read readiness carefully¶
The register shows returned member and direct-signer counts; open a body for its voter count and detailed membership. A body can be active yet need attention. Too few eligible voters fails the quorum check; a missing chairperson or missing signing authority raises a separate warning. Check both active state and readiness messages before use.
Dates matter. A future membership has not started, and an expired membership no longer supplies authority. Delegation adds signing authority without adding voting membership. A direct-signer count does not include every delegated signer. Available controls reflect your management access and the body's current rules; their presence does not guarantee that a later submission will still be valid.
Manual and synchronized bodies¶
Your team can create ordinary bodies and manage their members. The reserved organization-head body has protected membership supplied by organization-head synchronization. Its code and active state are protected; manual add-member and deactivate-member actions are unavailable. Supported display details, quorum, current-member authority, chairperson and delegation changes remain subject to the body's rules. Use the workspace organization-head process to resolve designation issues, then verify the synchronized approval authority.
Changes, history and recovery¶
Changing the chairperson closes the outgoing chairperson's membership and the incoming member's previous membership, then creates the incoming chairperson membership. The outgoing person is not automatically retained as an ordinary member. Delegations tied to a closed membership stop contributing effective signing authority. Recheck members, voters, signers and delegations after the change.
Deactivation retains records, but retained records are not a guarantee that a later historical lookup recreates every earlier permission. Current active and voting/signing flags affect those reads. For a past decision, use the evidence retained with that decision and its activity history; do not infer an immutable historical authorization record from the current body alone.
Follow the administration guide for the inspected design steps, prerequisites and recovery. Engineering and support composition is maintained in the private integration reference. Initial reader review, complete source reconciliation and connected end-to-end acceptance remain open.