Advanced Task Manager: Awaiting Review Gadget for Optimizely CMS

Legacy version: This post covers the original Optimizely CMS 11 version of Advanced Task Manager. For the newer versions, see the CMS 12 release post and the 2026 update post.

Last reviewed: July 24, 2026

Currently, user notifications and Awaiting Review tasks are disconnected and provide only basic information to editors.

The idea behind this project is two-fold. First, it builds a more capable approval sequence task management gadget for content approval and change approval tasks. Second, it combines user notifications with tasks so approvers can act from a single interface instead of switching between multiple places.

The gadget gives editors clearer visibility into each task, including:

• Content name
• Approval type, where change approval tasks are available
• Content type
• Type
• Submitted date and time
• Started by
• Deadline, if enabled

The main features are:

• Task ordering
• Deadline field for content approval
• User notifications associated with the task
• Approve entire approval sequence
• Publish content after approval

Some features are disabled by default, but you can enable or disable them through configuration.

Task ordering

The gadget lets editors sort Awaiting Review tasks by:

• Date and time
• Approval type
• Content type
• Type
• Category
• User who submitted the request
• Deadline

Deadline field for content approval (Optional)

The deadline property allows editors to set a priority date and time against content so approvers can see urgency before approval.

The feature is disabled by default and can be enabled by adding the relevant <appSettings> entry to Web.config.

When enabled, the Content approval deadline property is added to page types and block types under the Content Approval tab.

The deadline property has three states:

• Warning - highlighted in green when the deadline is approaching. By default, this is within 4 days.
• Danger - highlighted in red when the deadline has passed.
• Normal - no special highlighting when there is still enough time.

You can configure the warning duration through Web.config.

Setting ATM:EnableContentApprovalDeadline to false hides the property and tab from the CMS editor UI. If you want to remove the property from the CMS, add the delete setting shown below.

Please note that ATM:DeleteContentApprovalDeadlineProperty only runs if ATM:EnableContentApprovalDeadline is set to false.

User notifications associated with the task

The gadget lets user notifications associated with a task be marked as read and makes the notification icon more useful instead of allowing notifications to build up without context.

When editors open or refresh the gadget, unread task notifications are highlighted and then marked as read automatically in the editor notification area.

Approve entire approval sequence (only for Content Approval)

The gadget allows the editor to approve the entire content approval sequence for one or more content items. A comment is required.

Publish content after approval

If the editor has publish rights, the option to Publish selected content after approval becomes available.

If the editor can publish only some of the approved content, only those items are published, and warning messages are shown for items they cannot publish.

Configuring features

To turn individual features on or off, use the relevant <appSettings> entries in Web.config.

Install

Install the package from the Optimizely NuGet feed:

Install-Package AdvancedTaskManager

Then add the Advanced Task Manager gadget to the dashboard.

Update 2.0.0

• Change Approval tasks are shown alongside Content Approval tasks.
• Support was added for more CMS task types, including Optimizely Forms, ImageData, and MediaData.
• Pagination and performance improvements were included.

Links

Legacy CMS 11 repository
NuGet package
CMS 12 release post
2026 update post