Allow bulk approval

Allow Bulk Approval is an optional, per-certification setting. When it is enabled, reviewers can approve (certify) or revoke all of the access items for a user — in the User view — or for an entitlement — in the Entitlement view — in a single action, instead of reviewing each access item individually. It exists as a convenience for reviewers who face very large review lists, and it is turned off by default.

Warning — enable at your own risk: Bulk approval lets reviewers rubber-stamp access without examining individual items. This undermines the purpose of an access certification campaign and weakens the audit and compliance evidence the campaign is meant to produce. It is not recommended. An administrator who enables this setting accepts that access decisions may be made without individual review.

Enabling the setting (administrator)

Bulk approval is controlled on the certification configuration screen.

  1. Log in to the webconsole and go to Access control > Access certification.
  2. Open the certification you want to configure and go to its Configuration tab.
  3. Locate the Allow Bulk Approval toggle. It is off by default.
    • Helper text under the toggle reads: "Reviewers can approve or revoke all access items for a user or entitlement in one click, without drilling into individual items."
  4. Turn the toggle on to enable bulk approval for this certification. When the toggle is on, a red danger disclaimer appears beneath it, warning that bulk approval is risky and enabled at your own risk.
  5. Save the certification.

How the value is applied

  • The setting is saved with the certification and is copied to each campaign launched from that certification.
  • A campaign keeps the value it launched with: changing the toggle on the certification later does not change a campaign that is already running.
Note: Because the value is fixed at launch, decide whether bulk approval is appropriate before you execute a campaign. To change the behavior of an in-progress campaign you would need to launch a new one.

Dashboard indicator

So that administrators can immediately see that this risky option is on, campaigns that have bulk approval enabled display a red Bulk Approval Enabled danger chip on the certification/campaign dashboard.

Reviewer experience

The reviewer experience depends on whether the setting is enabled.

When bulk approval is disabled (default)

None of the bulk approval controls appear. Reviewers review each access item individually and submit their decisions exactly as they did before this feature existed.

When bulk approval is enabled

In the campaign's User view and Entitlement view, a titled Bulk Approval Mode panel appears above the list of items. It contains the following.

ElementDescription
Risk reminder bannerA reminder at the top of the panel that decisions are being made in bulk without reviewing items individually.
Certify all / Revoke all controlsMark every pending row in the list as certified or as revoked, respectively.
{n} marked indicatorShows how many rows are currently marked with a pending decision.
Per-row Approve/Revoke toggleEach row also gets its own toggle, so a reviewer can mark decisions row by row instead of (or in addition to) using Certify all / Revoke all.
Submit Review buttonCommits all marked decisions at once. This mirrors the Submit Review action used in the existing individual (drill-down) review flow.

A typical bulk review is: mark decisions (individually with the per-row toggles, or all at once with Certify all / Revoke all), then click Submit Review to commit them together.

Additional behavior to be aware of:

  • Already-reviewed rows are excluded. A row that is already fully reviewed (all reviewers have decided on it) shows no toggle and is not affected by Certify all / Revoke all.
  • The panel hides when there is nothing left to review. If the campaign has no items remaining for the reviewer, the entire Bulk Approval Mode section is hidden.
  • Background refresh is paused during selection. While a reviewer has marked decisions that have not yet been submitted, automatic refresh/polling of the list is suspended so it cannot disrupt the in-progress selection. The list resumes refreshing after the decisions are submitted.

Audit and reporting

Bulk approval decisions are fully traceable so that auditors can identify access that was certified without individual review.

  • Decision source is recorded. Every review decision records its source on the access-review audit trail — either INDIVIDUAL (reviewed one item at a time) or BULK (submitted through the bulk action).
  • Results report column. The certification Results report includes a BULK_APPROVAL_RISK column that flags each item's decision source. See Certification reporting for details on the Results report.
Note: Auditors should treat any item flagged in the BULK_APPROVAL_RISK column as access that was certified in bulk and was not reviewed individually.