The Quietmill blog
Learn how approvals work, fix requests that have stalled, and see what is new in Approval Nudge.
JSM approvals, end to end
These guides follow an approval from setup to audit trail. Product walkthroughs live here; the deeper Jira repair guides open on Atlassian Community.
Atlassian Community · 20 October 2026 · AutoReply Guard
An out-of-office reply lands in Jira Service Management as a new request, an agent opens it and closes it. Why it happens, what Jira's own filter does and does not catch, and how Review only lets a person decide.
Atlassian Community · 13 October 2026 · AutoReply Guard
The launch article: start in Review only, keep or close with the matched wording in front of you, then automate the routine closures when you are ready.
Atlassian Community · 13 October 2026 · Approval Nudge
Some migrated or integration-created requests carry a pending approval but no request type, so Jira hides the approval details and nobody gets a reminder. How to find and repair them.
Approval Nudge · 27 August 2026
Find approvals stranded by deactivated accounts and stop chasing people who cannot answer. Advanced can add a project-wide fallback.
Atlassian Community · 27 August 2026 · Approval Nudge
Deactivating an account does not remove the person from an approval already waiting for them. What Jira shows, what it does not, and how to get the request moving again.
Approval Nudge · 26 August 2026
Both editions show the people still waiting inside a JSM approver group. Advanced can also send those people a reminder.
Atlassian Community · Episode 5
Plan cover before leave starts, add a stand-in without replacing the original approver, and keep a usable record of what happened.
Atlassian Community · Episode 4
Why approvals = pending() can find closed migration leftovers, unreadable requests and deliberately excluded work—and how a small JQL mistake can widen a scan.
Atlassian Community · Episode 3
How Jira counts approvals across groups, who receives the email, what the portal leaves out and what the API can—and cannot—tell you.
Atlassian Community · Episode 2
Restricting and mapping approvers, the controls Jira actually gives you, and why the answer changes between company-managed and team-managed projects.
Atlassian Community · Episode 1
Four practical options compared: manual chasing, Jira Automation, scheduled reporting and a purpose-built app—with the setup cost and limits of each.
Jira Service Management · 28 July 2026
How approval steps work, who can approve, what approvers experience, how to track what is pending and why approvals stall.
Jira Service Management · 24 July 2026
An approval request can sit unanswered when its email arrives while someone is away or is lost in a busy inbox. The ways to follow up, and what each one costs.