ApproveAPI
Web and SaaS
approval workflow api
SHOW HN2019
183points
56comments
#220of 2,195 in 2019
Top 11%of 2019 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
4 positive, 16 neutral or asking, 6 mixed, 9 critical, out of 35 comments about the project. Thread score -0.19.
Pricing: 1 for, 3 againstIdea: 1 for, 2 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 2 againstDesign: 1 for, 1 againstExecution: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Useful product that factors out internal approval projects built repeatedly
From 3 comments
I wish I built this. this is a great idea. it's simple and useful it's something I could have built myself in a couple of weeks and it aggregates a lot of business useful…
dosy on HNWe built some of this functionality internally 6mos ago. Wish I had seen this then...
sshmania on HNOn average, a boring approval wastes maybe 1 minute between the requester waiting and the approver opening whatever system they use for approval. Over 100 approvals, this is 100…
Aeolun on HN
Pricing works out for low-volume or automated workflows
From 2 comments
I think that's a bit strong without talking about use cases. Approvals here cost ~1¢. Picking a figure of $100k as a developer salary (as it was the first result in a quick…
IanCal on HNOn average, a boring approval wastes maybe 1 minute between the requester waiting and the approver opening whatever system they use for approval. Over 100 approvals, this is 100…
Aeolun on HN
Objections
Pricing is too expensive for high volume approvals
From 3 comments
Wow, $1 for 100 emails is very very very very expensive. So expensive that I'd opt to build this in house rather and take on the costs associated with it and still come out…
chaosprophet on HNFelt the same, though it really depends very much on your use case. If you end up in the thousands of daily approvals, then yes, that would be immensly expensive for the service…
krsdcbl on HNYou are clearly baking in your Twilio/Mailgun costs in to the per-approval price. Why not just let me provide an API key and charge $5/mo for the service itself?
dsl on HN
Companies could build it in-house cheaply
From 3 comments
This is neat but I wonder if companies would just build this themselves instead?
braindumps on HNWow, $1 for 100 emails is very very very very expensive. So expensive that I'd opt to build this in house rather and take on the costs associated with it and still come out…
chaosprophet on HNLet's say there's a need to approve 10 things a week, each needing a 5 person approvals. That's $2 per month of cost. A developer costs $150k a year, and if it takes a month to…
chii on HN
Third-party handling of sensitive data raises privacy and security concerns
From 2 comments
> I don't think it's a challenging enough problem on its surface to keep someone from re-writing it and replacing you long term Agreed, it's nice to get something up and running…
everdev on HNGo talk to your vendor management team about getting a $2/mo contract signed. What does support look like because if this goes down at 2 AM, business is impacted. Legal needs to…
dsl on HN
Little moat, easy to replicate
From 2 comments
I appreciate your defense of these folks. It’s a kind gesture with great intent behind it. My response in no way takes away from the spirit of your post. I think the core of why…
wjossey on HNHit y'all up on intercom but leaving my feedback here as well. I built this out internally for my app, and it took me a little over a day to do it. Had this existed when I built…
wjossey on HN
Requests
Support links and richer content in approval messages
From 2 comments
Looks good, quick testing seems to suggest it works pretty smoothly. Small point, I'm not in the US so it'd be good to see the international SMS prices. There's no link I could…
IanCal on HNThanks! Bear in mind this is coming from a likely extremely low use user, but supporting links in the text that's sent may solve most problems other customisation would be used…
IanCal on HN
Metadata passing in prompt requests
From 1 comment
Small Suggestion In the `POST /prompt` endpoint provide a way to pass metadata that does not need to be shown to the user, and return that back in the prompt answer object sent…
sanjeevkm on HN
Delegate and escalation options for approvers
From 1 comment
A useful feature for a service like this is being able to set delegates both from the producer and consumer side. For example, if the person I sent the notification to doesn’t…
jteppinette on HN
Stronger API authentication than a blank password
From 1 comment
"ApproveAPI uses HTTP Basic Authentication where the username is your API key and the password is blank." I'm not too fond of the lack of API password tbh. Cool idea otherwise.
lapnitnelav on HN
Questions
How are email scanners prevented from triggering approvals?
From 1 comment
How do you prevent email/web filtering applications that "scan" email/web URLs from triggering the confirmation/denials?
nickphx on HN
How is international SMS pricing handled?
From 1 comment
Looks good, quick testing seems to suggest it works pretty smoothly. Small point, I'm not in the US so it'd be good to see the international SMS prices. There's no link I could…
IanCal on HN
Can it be used for phone number verification?
From 2 comments
Looks cool! Can this be used for phone number verification? If so how this would work? The user would get a text with a link? Or shortcode?
lfx on HNYes! The user would get a text with a link.
agrinman on HN
Alternatives named
Open source otpgateway by knadh
From 1 comment
I made a similar open source verification gateway recently. It supports emails and you can write other providers as plugins. https://github.com/knadh/otpgateway
knadh on HN
Building approvals in-house
From 2 comments
This is neat but I wonder if companies would just build this themselves instead?
braindumps on HNThis will not be built in house at a fraction of the cost. In fact, it will be a massive, _massive_ waste of time. But it is part of a business critical flow, and therefore…
Aeolun on HN