Collaborate with your teammates on your social content strategy with Later’s team-based features and content approval workflow.

Important:

• Team collaboration and content approvals is currently only available through Later for desktop (not available on mobile)
• Team collaboration (post comments and activity log) and content approvals are available on Advanced plans and up
• The in-app notification center is available on Agency plans and up
• Team collaboration and content approvals are not available for Instagram Stories

Overview

Later's collaboration features allow you to communicate with your team directly on scheduled and draft posts with a built-in content approval workflow (available for Advanced plans and up), and track activity in an in-app notification center (available for Agency plans and up).

You can request and provide content approvals, share feedback, and chat with your team—all without ever leaving Later. 

Roles & Permissions

The table below outlines what each user role is able to do within Later:

Invite Your Team

For internal team collaboration, you’ll need to invite your teammates to your Later account first and assign them the correct permissions for their role. Learn more about adding users

Add Team Members

First, you can invite teammates to add them as users in your Later account as follows:

1. From Later for desktop, select Settings > Users
2. Select Invite User
3. Enter their name and email address
4. Select Send Invite

Once invited, your teammate will have to accept the invite sent to the email address you entered by selecting Accept Invitation:

Assign Roles

Once your team members have been added (above), you can assign their roles within your Later account as follows:

1. From Later for desktop, select Settings > Social Sets & Access Groups
2. Select Edit next to the Access Group for which you’d like to update the user’s permissions
   • Learn more about Access Groups
3. Select the Users tab:
4. Select Edit next to the user whose permissions you’d like to update:
   
   
   Note: The Account Owner will always have both Member and Reviewer roles—this can’t be changed or revoked unless you transfer ownership of your account.
5. Toggle the Reviewer or Publish Without Approval options:
   
   • By default, Reviewer will be toggled off—enabling it will allow this user to approve posts
   • By default, Publish Without Approval will be toggled on—disabling it will prevent this user from being able to schedule posts before they are approved
     • If a user has the Reviewer role, this can't be disabled
6. Select Save

Content Approvals

Request Content Approvals

All users in a Later account are able to request content approvals—even if they’re a Reviewer themselves—as follows:

1. Create a new post as usual from Later for desktop
   • Learn more about creating posts in Later
2. From the lower-right of the Post Builder, check the box next to Submit for Approval:
   
   
   Note: This functionality isn't available for Instagram Stories.
3. Either schedule the post or save it as a draft
   • The approval process works the same either way, but saving the post as a draft can be useful if you want to make sure the post doesn’t get published before being approved—scheduled posts will be published as usual, regardless of approval status
     • If the Publish Without Approval permission is disabled for a user, they'll only have the option to save the post as a draft

All user(s) with Reviewer status on the account will now receive an email that new content is awaiting approval (unless they unsubscribed), and be able to approve it or leave a feedback comment. The approval request will also appear in the in-app notification center (available on Agency plans and up).

Approve Content

If you have the Reviewer role in your Later account, you can review and approve content as follows:

1. From Later for desktop, select List above the calendar:
   • If you have content awaiting approval (and are a Reviewer in the account), you’ll see a blue banner like this at the top of List view:
     
   • Alternatively, select Review Post(s) from the in-app notification center
2. Select the blue circle with the number to automatically filter for all content awaiting approval:
   
   • The Status filter will automatically update to Requires Approval, and the date range will automatically update (if needed) to capture all content waiting for approval
   • From here you can also add additional Status and Post Type filters, as well as change the Sort method
3. Review each post and select ✓ Approve under it, or select ✕ Request Edits to leave a feedback comment instead (see below)
   

Alternatively, if you select on a post that requires approval from the Calendar, you can approve it via the banner displayed at the top of the Post Builder.

The user who requested approval will receive an email notifying them when their content is approved (unless they unsubscribed). On Agency plans and up, they’ll also receive notifications in the in-app notification center for both approvals and feedback comments.

Notification Center

Users on Agency plans and up have access to an in-app notification center for real-time updates on approval requests, approved content, and post comments. To access, select Notifications from the sidebar:

Use the tabs across the top to filter by read or unread notifications, and select Review Post(s) to be taken directly to the post to approve or leave feedback. 

Team Collaboration

Internal Review

You can also leave feedback comments on posts (excluding Instagram Stories). On Agency plans and up, comments will also show in the in-app notification center. This functionality can be combined with the content approval workflow by allowing the submitter to review and apply your feedback and then re-submit the post for approval.

To leave a comment, either open the Post Builder and select the speech bubble icon in the top right to open the activity log and leave a comment from the sidebar:

Alternatively, select ✕ Request Edits from the list of content awaiting approval to leave a feedback comment (the comment will end up in the same activity log either way).

In addition to feedback comments, this activity log will also display when the post was submitted for approval and when it was approved (if applicable). Everything is displayed chronologically, so you can easily reference the timeline of events.

External Review

You also have the option to share posts for feedback with reviewers outside of Later—no user invitation or login required.

You can share posts for external review as follows:

1. From Later for desktop on your Calendar page, select Send posts
2. Select the posts on the Calendar that you’d like to include in the shareable link
   • These can be scheduled, published, or draft posts
   • Instagram Stories aren’t supported
3. Select Create Link
   
4. Select Copy Link to share the URL with reviewers, or enter their email address (one at a time) and select Invite
   
   
   Note: Shareable review links are valid for 7 days from when they are created. Links aren’t password-protected.

After opening the link, reviewers will be prompted to enter their name and can leave feedback comments of up to 500 characters, which will appear in the in-app notification center on Agency plans and higher.

Frequently Asked Questions

If a post isn’t approved, will it still be published?

Yes. Content approval (or lack thereof) won’t block publishing. This means scheduled content will be posted as usual, regardless of approval status.

If you’d like to ensure that a post doesn’t get published until approved, you can submit it for approval while it’s in draft mode. Approvals for draft posts function in the same way as scheduled posts, but that way you can schedule the post only after it’s been approved to be sure it doesn’t go out beforehand.

Alternatively, you can restrict a user's ability to schedule posts without approval. To do so, follow these steps above and disable the Publish Without Approval option in the user's permissions. That way, the user will only be able to submit draft posts for approval, and won't be able to schedule them without it.

Will I get notified if content needs my approval and/or if my content is approved?

Yes. Unless they unsubscribe, users will be notified by email both when their approval is requested as well as when any of their content has been approved. On Agency plans and up, they’ll also receive a notification in the in-app notification center.

Will I get notified of new comments?

At this time, there are no email notifications for feedback comments, but they will appear in the in-app notification center which is available on Agency plans and up.

Can I unsubscribe from approval notification emails?

Yes, you can unsubscribe yourself from receiving approval email notifications as follows:

1. From Later for desktop, select Settings > Devices & Notifications
2. Under Email, disable the toggle next to approval notifications

Your settings will automatically save. You can resume these email notifications at any time by re-enabling the same toggle.