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MOAS for Order Approvals

Akhil S
  • Updated

This tutorial shows you how to set up MOAS (aka "Manager Order Approval System") for your store.

MOAS is a feature that requires a Manager approving all or specified orders that come through the store. The users' managers email address is pre-loaded in the admin at the user level or group level and you can set the MOAS approval to trigger based on order total or a specific product, and finally for budget buckets. When the user places an order, the order is then sent to the manager for review and approval/denial of the order via email.

*** Please note *** 

IF you are collecting payment by credit card gateway, unless Stripe Connect or PayPal is set up as the method of payment collection for credit cards, orders will bypass MOAS if any other payment gateway is used. Otherwise, non-credit card payment methods will not bypass MOAS.

IF your client has any email security systems in place, it's entirely possible that when they receive MOAS approval emails, that their email security system auto-approves/denies the order. More information on troubleshooting this can be found here.

Article Sections

Activate the MOAS Feature

You may need to first activate this feature.

  1. Access the Features section and verify you are on the Features page.
  2. For the MOAS option, toggle the "Active"  button to on.
     

Configure MOAS for Individual Users

Access the user that requires an MOAS approver.

  1. Access the Users & Groups section and click into the Users page.
  2. Click the "edit" (pencil) icon for the user that needs an approver added.

Set Up MOAS for User - Rule Type: By Order Total

  1. Click into the MOAS section.
  2. Rule Type: By Order Total: Toggle this section on, and if you need orders only approved at or above a certain total, input that value (e.g. if orders only need to be approved if they're $150 or more, input $150). If all orders (regardless of total) need to be routed for approval, keep this blank.
  3. Approval Email: Type out (or paste in) the email address, and click "Add." (repeat this step for any additional approval emails)
  4. Click "Save" to confirm your changes.

Set Up MOAS for User - Rule Type: By Specific Product

  1. Click into the MOAS section
  2. Rule Type: By Specific Product: Toggle this section on, and in the drop-down listing, select all item(s) that will require approval. This will mean that any item ordered by the user that's part of the list will trigger MOAS approval (you can set more than one item).
  3. Approval Email: Type out (or paste in) the email address, and click "Add." (repeat this step for any additional approval emails)
  4. Click "Save" to confirm your changes.

 

Configure MOAS for a Group of Users

You can also configure a group level MOAS approver. When this is configured, all users in that group will have the same MOAS approver email. If user accounts have their own user level MOAS approver email setup, keep in mind that will override what is setup at the group level. Additionally, if users are assigned to multiple groups with MOAS approval emails, then each MOAS approver configured under the groups the user account is assigned to will receive an individual email (i.e. if the user is in 3 groups, and there is 1 approval email address per group, then 3 separate emails will be generated)

Access the group that requires an MOAS approver.

  1. Access the Users & Groups section and click into the Groups page.
  2. Click the "edit" (pencil) icon for the group that needs an approver added.

Set Up MOAS for Group - Rule Type: By Order Total

  1. Verify you are in the Group section. The lower half of the screen is for MOAS configuration.  
  2. Rule Type: By Order Total: Toggle this section on, and if you need orders only approved at or above a certain total, input that value (e.g. if orders only need to be approved if they're $150 or more, input $150). If all orders (regardless of total) need to be routed for approval, keep this blank.
  3. Approval Email: Type out (or paste in) the email address, and click "Add." (repeat this step for any additional approval emails)
  4. Click "Save" to confirm your changes.

Set Up MOAS for Group - Rule Type: By Specific Product

  1. Verify you are in the Group section. The lower half of the screen is for MOAS configuration.  
  2. Rule Type: By Specific Product: Toggle this section on, and in the drop-down listing, select all item(s) that will require approval. This will mean that any item ordered by this group assigned to users that's part of the list will trigger MOAS approval.
  3. Approval Email: Type out (or paste in) the email address, and click "Add." (repeat this step for any additional approval emails)
  4. Click "Save" to confirm your changes.
     

Configure MOAS for Budgets

If the Budgets feature is activated in the store, you can configure MOAS approver email addresses to approve orders placed against Budgets. This also includes being able to upload or update the list of budgets with MOAS approver emails via .csv upload as well.

To add an approver to an individual budget

  1. Access the Budgets page.
  2. Click the "edit" (pencil) icon for the budget to add the approver to (not pictured here).
  3. Click into the MOAS section.
  4. MOAS Activation Amount: Orders equal to or over this amount will require a manager's approval. In this example, orders under $500 will not need approval and orders over $500 will need a manager's approval. If all orders need approval, no matter the amount, enter $0.00.
  5. Approver's Email: Click the "Plus Sign (+)" to add an Approval Email address. Click the plus sign again to add multiple approvers.
  6. Click "Save" to apply your changes.
  7. You can use the "Switch Budget" option at the top to navigate between budgets.

To add an approver to multiple budgets at once

If you are using the budget import or update template, you can input an MOAS email to approve orders placed against that budget.

MOAS Examples

When a user logs into the store and places their order, they are directed to the stores Thank You page, which lets them know that their order has been sent for approval and that they will receive a confirmation email when the order is approved/denied. 

Once an order has been submitted for approval, the designated approver/approver's will receive an email that looks just like the order email that the shopper receives containing the full order details; but this email will ALSO contain 2 buttons that allow the designated approver/approver's to either Approve or Deny the order as shown below.

To approve/deny via the order email:

  • To Approve an Order: Click the "Approve Order" button and an Order Confirmation Email will be generated for the approver and the shopper.
  • To Deny an Order: Click the "Deny Order" button. The shopper will get a denial email.  No email will be generated for the MOAS approver but they will receive the message below. 
    • Thank you for denying this order. If you’d like to email the user with any additional information, please click here.

To approve/deny an order via the Orders tab in the control panel:

  1. Navigate to the Orders Page.
  2. The order will be in a status of MOAS Pending.
  3. Click the "edit" (pencil) icon for this order.
  1. Verify you are in the Order Details section.
  2. Click the "Approve" button to approve the order and a confirmation window will appear for you to confirm order approval.
  3. Click the "Cancel Order" button to deny the order and a confirmation window will appear for you to confirm order denial.

Don't Approve/Deny MOAS orders directly from E-Mail

The standard MOAS Approval email will show up as two separate buttons; one to "Approve Order" and one to "Deny Order." If you're finding that your client's email security system is automatically approving (or denying) orders that a manager isn't actioning, you can configure your MOAS approval emails to only contain one button. This should ensure that an email security system isn't accidentally approving or denying orders. Overall, it's best recommended that your client review their email receival settings. 

  1. To activate this MOAS approval email display, go into Settings and then into Store Options. 
  2. Activate the toggle for "Don't Approve/Deny MOAS orders directly from E-Mail."
  3. Hit "Save", to apply your changes. 

Once you do this, then the email received by a manger will contain one button which routes to the storefront. 

Then here, the manager can approve or deny the order; bypassing any email security system that could be automatically clicking the links.

Enable MOAS approvals for Credit Card gateway transactions

By default, orders placed with credit cards will bypass MOAS approval. If you require orders paid for with credit card to be routed for approval, this is possible. To do this, navigate into Settings > Store Options, and toggle on "Enable MOAS approvals for Credit Card gateway transaction" and hit "Save" to apply your changes.

Please note, orders paid for with credit card, and then routed for approval have a maximum period of time that the transaction is valid for. This means if you have a credit card order that has been in MOAS pending (and hasn't been approved or denied yet) for longer than the maximum allowed time by your gateway, the transaction could be voided out automatically. You would need to check with your payment gateway provider for how long a transaction authorization is valid for as each provider varies.

FAQs

Q: Will MOAS work with Credit Card orders?
A: If you require orders paid for with credit card to be sent for MOAS approval, this is possible by activating the toggle for "Enable MOAS approvals for Credit Card gateway transaction" under Settings > Store Options.

Q: What happens if a user has MOAS configured on their account, and is assigned to a group with MOAS configured also?
A: MOAS approval works as a "hierarchy" with user-level configured MOAS approval emails triggering in lieu of group-level configured MOAS approval emails. If a user-level MOAS approval email is set up in tandem with a group-level MOAS approval email, AND the user has a budget bucket with MOAS approval set up, the MOAS approval email configured for the budget bucket will be triggered (not the user-level, or group-level MOAS approval emails).

Q: What happens if more than one approval email is set up?
A: Each email address configured for MOAS (at either the user-level, group-level, or budge bucket level) will be sent an individual copy of the approval email. For example, if you have 3 email addresses set up, all 3 will be notified at once. However, only ONE of the approvers can "action" (approve or deny) the order. This is because MOAS approval/denial links are one-time use only.

Q: Can I combine product specific and order total rule types?
A: While you can use both MOAS rule types at once, this doesn't make it so BOTH rules have to be true for MOAS configured. For example, if you have MOAS set up for a specific product AND for an order total of $300; MOAS approval will always be triggered regardless if the shopper orders $300 of the specific item, or not.

Q: What happens if a product requiring approval is ordered with a product that does not require approval?

A: The manager will still be notified via email to approve or deny the order, but this will be for the entire order. If the manager denies the order, this will deny (cancel) the entire order out, not just the one item that requires approval.

Q: My client says that when they approve or deny the order, they get an error stating their MOAS link is invalid; how do I fix this?
A: This may mean that your client uses an email security system which is clicking/checking links in emails they receive. As a result, this is automatically approving or denying the order. We always recommend reviewing our email troubleshooting guide when needing to review email receival issues with your client. In addition to that, you can also set the emails to use a single button by going into Setting > Store Options, and activating "Don't approve/deny MOAS orders directly from E-mail."

Q: Why was the approver not notified an order was sent to them to approve?
A: If an approver configured to receive MOAS emails did not receive one, we recommend first checking under Orders to see if the order has an approval email or not. If it doesn't, you may want to check how the approver's email is set up to be notified, as well as reviewing the order. If the shopper didn't order any items requiring approval, or they paid by credit card [see note above].

 

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