Approve an application with an Action

Tools usedBuilt into Domma CMS

Step 1: Connect MongoDB

Actions keep their settings in MongoDB, so they need a database connection - nothing to buy, just a database to point at. Without one, Data > Actions says Actions need MongoDB and offers nothing else.

Connect it from Data > Collections > Database connections, or from the site's folder on the server:

npm run pro enable

It asks for your MongoDB address and database name, saves them as the default connection in config/connections.json, and installs the driver. Restart the site afterwards.

Your collections stay where they are - connecting MongoDB moves nothing. It only becomes available.

Step 2: Give applications a status

Open the applications collection in Data > Collections, click Add field and set:

• Label: Status, and Name: status
• Type: Dropdown (select)
• Options, one per line: pending, approved, declined

Save the collection.

Check that the collection also has the applicant's email (here email) and name (here contact_name). Your field names may differ - use yours wherever this tutorial says email or contact_name.

Step 3: Create the Action

Go to Data > Actions and click New action in the banner. On the General tab:

• Title: Approve application - its slug, approve-application, cannot be changed later
• Collection: the applications collection - the Action only ever runs on its entries
• Description: Approves the account, welcomes the applicant and tells the office.

On the Trigger tab, the trigger is Manual - a button on the entry. Set:

• Button label: Approve
• Button icon: check
• Confirmation message: Approve this application? - asked before anything happens

Step 4: Add the steps

On the Steps tab, add three steps, in this order. They run top to bottom, and the first one to fail stops the rest.

1. Update a field - choose status, New value approved.

2. Send an email:

• To: {{entry.data.email}}
• Subject: Your ACME trade account is open
• Body:

Hello {{entry.data.contact_name}},

Good news - your trade account is approved and ready to use.

ACME Ltd

3. Notify the admins:

• Title: Trade account approved
• Body: {{entry.data.contact_name}} was approved by {{user.name}}.
• Severity: success

The Template variables table under the steps lists what you can use: {{entry.data.<field>}} for any field, {{entry.id}}, {{now}}, and {{user.name}} and {{user.email}} for the person who pressed the button. A field that is empty gives an empty string.

Step 5: Decide who can press it

On the Access tab, Who can run it lists your roles. New actions start with admin. If you have a role for office staff, tick it too - a role lets in everyone more senior as well. This decides who may run it, in the admin and on pages: the admin's ⚡ menu offers it only to these roles, and the button on a page (Step 7) refuses anyone else.

Only on some entries narrows it further, for example to entries a person owns. Leave it off here.

Click Save (Ctrl+S).

Step 6: Approve from the admin

Open the applications in Data > Collections. Each row now has a ⚡ button - Run one of this collection's actions - listing the actions your role may run. Click it (or right-click the row) and choose Approve….

After the confirmation, the steps run: the status changes, the applicant gets their email, the office gets a notification, and the toast says Approve done (3 steps). If a step fails - say the email server is down - the toast names the step and its error, and the steps after it do not run.

Step 7: An Approve button on a staff page

Office staff should not need the admin. Make a page for them - set its visibility to your staff role, so nobody else can open it - and list the pending applications with a button on each:

[collection slug="trade-applications" where_status="pending" display="cards" cta="approve-application" cta-label="Approve" cta-icon="check" cta-confirm="Approve this application?" /]

Use your own collection's slug. The button runs the same Action, as the person signed in: someone not signed in is asked to sign in, and someone whose role is not under Who can run it is refused.

Step 8: Running an Action when a form is sent

A form can run an Action on the entry it has just stored: in the form editor's Actions tab, Action on Submit, or, from a single answer, the field trigger Run a CMS action.

A failure there never loses the submission: it is stored first, and the admins are told if the Action fails.

What you built

A one-click approval that writes the status, emails the applicant and tells the office - with a confirmation, limited to the right people, from the admin or from a staff page.

Keep going

• Reporting with Saved Views - a page of pending applications and how many were approved this month
• Build a client portal with a confined role - the staff role for Step 7
• Ship a public JSON API in five minutes