If a document cannot be assigned to an approver at the point of submission, it lands in the Exceptions tab - an involuntary holding state that only admins can see and resolve.
What the Exceptions tab is
👉 What is the Exceptions tab?
Exceptions is an admin-only tab in the Approvals module, alongside Awaiting, Approved, and Rejected. Users and Approver-only users do not see it. A document here has been submitted but cannot move forward because the system could not assign it to a valid approver, and the No approver column shows the stage with no one to act. It only appears when the system cannot assign the matched stage.
Why a document lands in Exceptions
👉 Why do documents land in Exceptions?
A document falls here when the matched stage cannot be assigned to any approver at submission time. There are three causes:
No approver on the matched stage - the stage was built with no approver, or all assigned approvers have since been removed from the folder.
Stale workflow reference - the document was submitted against a workflow since edited in a way that makes the stored stage unresolvable.
Unassignable stage - the only approver on the matched first stage is the person who submitted it, and self-approval is off for that path, so nobody else can act.
👉 Why did my document go to Exceptions instead of Awaiting?
The most common cause is the self-approval block at the first stage: if you submitted the document and you are the only approver on stage A with self-approval off, the system has nobody to assign, so it goes to Exceptions for an admin to clear.
How to clear an exception
👉 How do I clear an exception?
Choose the option that fits the situation (only admins can do any of these):
Reassign - More actions > Reassign, hand the pending stage to another person with a reason. Use when the workflow is correct but the right person was missing.
Approve as admin - More actions > Admin > Approve as admin, with a reason. Use when you need to unblock it immediately and the approval is no longer needed.
Fix the workflow, then Reset and resubmit - add a valid approver in Manage workflows, then Reset approval on the document and submit it again. Use when a misconfigured stage will affect future documents too.
👉 Can I prevent documents from landing in Exceptions?
Keep stages fully staffed. Before turning self-approval off for a path, check that at least one other person is assigned to every stage a submitter might trigger. See Setting up an approval workflow.
After clearing an exception
👉 What happens after I clear an exception?
The document moves out of Exceptions, and it never clears itself - every document there needs an explicit admin action:
Reassigned - moves to Awaiting and the new assignee can act.
Reset and resubmitted - goes back to Ready, then to Awaiting once submitted with the fixed workflow.
Approved as admin - becomes Approved and follows the normal export flow.
For step-by-step detail on each action, see Admin tools: Approve as admin, Reassign, Reset approval. For how the matched stage is determined, see how documents are routed.