Approving queue items from the SimplyPrint app

Approving queue items from the app

On School and Enterprise plans, the print queue can require teacher or admin approval before a job runs. The SimplyPrint app gives approvers a mobile inbox of pending items, with the file preview, submitter info, comments thread, and approve / deny / send-back actions, so you don't have to be at a desk to keep the lab moving.

Queue approval requires the Queue approval feature, which is included on the School and Enterprise plans only. Print Farm, Pro, Basic, and Free do not include queue approval.

What queue approval is
Who can approve
Where to find pending items in the app
Reviewing a pending item
Approve, deny, or send back
Quota and balance context
Comments and back-and-forth
Notifications
Bulk approval (web only)
What needs the web panel
Related articles

What queue approval is

On School and Enterprise accounts, the account admin can require that queue items submitted by certain user groups (typically students) wait for a teacher or admin to approve them before they're printed.

When a student adds a file to the queue, the item lands in a Pending approval lane instead of being printed immediately. An approver reviews the file, decides whether the print is reasonable, and either approves it (sending it to the live queue), denies it, or sends it back to the student for revision.

The full configuration lives on the web at /panel/settings/queue. The phone app is the approving side of the workflow, not the configuration side.

Who can approve

Approving requires the queue_approve permission. Account admins assign this permission via user groups (user ranks) in /panel/settings/organization on the web. Common patterns:

Schools: teachers have queue_approve; students don't.
Enterprise: project leads or lab admins have queue_approve; regular operators don't.

Some ranks can be configured to skip approval (their submissions go straight to the live queue without needing review). Others can view all pending items across user groups, not just their own group. Both are configured on the web.

If you don't see a Pending approval section in the app, your account either doesn't have queue approval enabled, your user rank doesn't have the queue_approve permission, or there's nothing currently pending.

Where to find pending items in the app

Pending items show up in two places in the app:

In the printer queue view: a Pending approval section at the top of the queue, separate from the live queue.
Push notification: each new pending item triggers a push (if notify approvers is enabled in settings).

Tap a pending item to open its review screen.

Reviewing a pending item

The review screen shows:

File preview - 3D thumbnail of the model
Submitter - name of the user who added it
Job analysis - estimated print time, filament weight, cost
Quota context - how much of the submitter's quota this job would use (if your account uses quotas / balances)
Comments thread - any back-and-forth between the student and approvers
File metadata - file name, group it was submitted to, time submitted

Scroll through to size up the print. If the time or material looks off, that's usually the signal that the student needs to re-slice with different settings.

Approve, deny, or send back

Three primary actions sit at the bottom of the review screen:

Approve - the item moves from Pending approval into the live queue. It'll be printed in the queue position your account configured (top, bottom, or its original submission time).
Deny - the item is rejected. You're prompted for an optional reason, and the student is notified (if notify submitter is on). You can choose to delete the item or leave it visible in their list as denied.
Send back for revision - revokes the pending status, prompts the student to make changes (with a comment from you), and waits for them to re-submit.

Approve and Deny are final actions; Send back is the right choice when you'd approve "if the student fixed X". Use it generously - it keeps the student in the loop without rejecting their work outright.

Quota and balance context

If your account uses quotas (per-user print limits) or balances (prepaid print credits), the review screen shows the submitter's current usage and what this specific job would deduct. This helps approvers decide whether the student has room in their quota for this print.

Quotas and balances are a separate concept from queue approval but they share the same plan gate (School + Enterprise via the Usage policies feature). Full details on quotas live in the queue / usage policies articles on the web panel.

There's no auto-approve-by-cost rule, no approval expiry, and no semester preset - every pending item is approved or denied by a human.

Comments and back-and-forth

Both you and the submitter can add comments to a queue item. Comments are useful for:

Telling a student why their print was sent back ("please reduce infill to 15%")
Asking what the model is for ("is this for the architecture class?")
Coordinating between multiple approvers ("approved, but only for the Ender 3 - too tall for the Mini")

Comments are visible to both sides and are part of the item's history.

Notifications

With Notify approvers turned on in queue settings, every new pending item triggers a push notification on every approver's phone. Tap the notification to jump straight to the review screen.

With Notify submitter turned on, the submitter gets a push when their item is approved, denied, or sent back.

See Push notifications from SimplyPrint to your phone for the broader push setup.

Bulk approval (web only)

The phone app reviews one item at a time. If you have a stack of pending items (start of a class, end of a project deadline), bulk-approval is faster on the web panel - select multiple items in the approval table and apply the same decision to all of them. The phone app is best for individual review on the go; the web panel is best for batch decisions at a desk.

What needs the web panel

A few things in the queue-approval workflow are still web-only:

Turning queue approval on for the account, and configuring its defaults
Per-group approval rules (which user groups require approval, which ranks are exempt)
Per-rank "skip approval" toggles
Quota and balance policy configuration
The standalone approval inbox widget on the teacher / student dashboard

The phone app is the on-the-go approval surface; the web panel is the configuration surface.

Updated on: 25/05/2026

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