Approving or declining a consent request

What this is

Every tile in your Consent Requests inbox opens the same window when you click it: the response modal. This is where the actual decision happens, the hero panel and the tile rows (covered in Reading the consent hero and Asks awaiting your response) only get you to this point. The modal lays out exactly what your network HQ is asking for, then gives you two buttons for a pending ask: Approve and Decline. This article walks through every line in that window, what each button does, and what happens once you click one.

Nothing in this modal changes your data's visibility until you click Approve. Verinode does not grant these asks on your behalf, and it never surfaces your name anywhere without you clicking that button yourself.

Where to find it

Open Consent Requests from the sidebar, or go straight to /consent-requests. Click any tile in the Asks awaiting your response row (or, for a request you already acted on, a tile in Recently resolved). The modal opens as an overlay on top of the page. Clicking anywhere on the dark background behind it, or the Close button at the bottom right, dismisses it without applying any change.

The top of the modal

Three lines sit above everything else, regardless of the request's status:

• A small uppercase label reading {group name} · {status}, for example "RIDGELINE RESTORATION NETWORK · PENDING." The status word (pending, approved, declined, withdrawn, or expired) is rendered in the same small caps style as the group name, not as a colored badge.
• A title: "Item 19 cohort invitation" if the request is an Item 19 ask, or "Consent request from your network" for the other four kinds.
• A one-line plain-language description of what that kind of request actually means:

- Named leaderboard: "HQ wants to show your name on the leaderboard for these metrics. Default leaderboard is anonymous." - Named view: "HQ wants to see this metric tied to your name for the specified window." - Case study: "HQ wants to feature your data in a research publication or case study." - Deep data: "HQ wants drill-down access to underlying data (e.g. job-level detail) for the specified scope." - Item 19 cohort: HQ is preparing the Item 19 Financial Performance Representation for their Franchise Disclosure Document. Approving adds your anonymized financial-period and jobs facts to the cohort's distribution. Your individual numbers are never disclosed, only network-wide percentile bands (P10 through P90) get computed from the cohort.

The ask summary

Below the description, a details list spells out the scope of the ask. Each line only appears when HQ actually set that field, so a simply-scoped request (a case study with no metrics attached, say) shows fewer lines than a tightly-scoped one.

• Cohort and Methodology, Item 19 asks only. The cohort's display name and the methodology version HQ is using to compute percentiles.
• Metrics, the exact metric names in scope, comma-separated. This line is omitted entirely if HQ didn't attach specific metrics (a case study or a broad cohort invitation, for instance).
• Window, the time period in scope, formatted as {start} → {end}. Either side falls back to a word when HQ left it open: "any" for no start, "open" for no end.
• Asked, always shown: how long ago the request was created, in relative terms ("today," "1 day ago," "N days ago" under 30 days, then "N months ago").
• Expires, only when HQ set an expiry: the exact date the request lapses, shown as a calendar date rather than a countdown. (The tile you clicked to get here shows a countdown like "expires in 11 days"; the modal itself shows the actual date, so you can check it against your calendar directly.)

If HQ gave a reason for the ask, it appears in its own boxed panel labeled "HQ's rationale," directly under the details list. If they left it blank, no panel appears at all, there is no "no rationale provided" placeholder inside the modal itself (that placeholder only appears on the tile, before you open it).

Approving

For a request still in pending status, the bottom of the modal shows two buttons: a bordered Decline on the left and a solid copper Approve on the right.

Clicking Approve:

1. Grants the request exactly as HQ scoped it, the metrics, window, and kind shown above. There is currently no control in this modal to narrow the scope yourself; approving means agreeing to what's on screen.
2. Marks the request approved and records the timestamp.
3. For an Item 19 cohort ask specifically, also adds your operator to that cohort's opt-in list, which is what makes the percentile math and the resulting FDD exhibit include your anonymized figures. This step is best-effort: if it hits a transient error, your approval still stands and Verinode reconciles the opt-in separately rather than failing your click.
4. Closes the modal and refreshes the page. The tile moves out of Asks awaiting your response and into Recently resolved.

There is no confirmation step between clicking Approve and it taking effect. Read the rationale and the scope lines above it before you click.

Declining

Above the two buttons, a labeled field reads "Decline reason (optional)" with the placeholder text "Why declining (sent to HQ)." Anything you type there is optional. If you leave it blank, no reason is sent at all, just a plain decline.

Clicking Decline:

1. Marks the request declined and records the timestamp, along with whatever reason you typed (or nothing, if you left the field empty).
2. Does not touch anything else about your data. Declining an Item 19 ask, for example, leaves your operator out of that cohort entirely; the absence of an opt-in is itself the record that you said no.
3. Closes the modal and refreshes the page. The tile moves into Recently resolved.

Your reason, if you gave one, is stored on the request record and available to your network HQ. It is not published anywhere or shown to other members of your network, it is a private note back to whoever sent the ask.

If something goes wrong

If Approve or Decline fails, for example a network hiccup, or someone else on your account already responded to the same request a moment earlier, the modal stays open and a short error line appears above the Close button. A stale request (one whose status has already changed since the modal opened) shows a message naming its current status, so you know why the click didn't take. Nothing is applied when this happens; you can close the modal and reopen the tile to see its current, correct state.

After you approve: revoking

Once a request is approved, reopening its tile shows a different bottom section instead of Approve and Decline. It reads: you approved this on the recorded date, and you can revoke at any time, HQ stops seeing your name immediately after. Below that sits a "Revoke reason (optional)" field with the placeholder "Why revoking" and a single bordered button, Revoke approval.

Clicking it flips the request to a withdrawn, closed state right away. HQ stops seeing your name from that point forward. For an Item 19 cohort ask, revoking also pulls your operator's figures back out of the cohort's opt-in list going forward, though the opt-in record itself stays on file as part of the regulatory audit trail rather than being deleted.

Closed requests

Requests that are declined, withdrawn, or expired are read-only when you reopen them. The modal shows a single line: "This request is closed. No further action needed." If you had declined it with a reason, that reason appears right after, in italics. There is nothing to click here beyond Close.

Best-practice example

Say a tile reads "Named leaderboard · Ridgeline Restoration Network," asked 3 days ago, expiring in 11 days. You open it. The description confirms HQ wants your name on an otherwise-anonymous leaderboard. The Metrics line lists "Net margin, Cash conversion." The Window line reads "2026-04-01 → 2026-06-30." HQ's rationale explains they want to spotlight top performers at the fall ownership meeting. You're comfortable with both numbers being shown, so you click Approve: the tile disappears from your pending row, and your name appears on that leaderboard for those two metrics and that quarter only, nothing else about your data changes. A month later you change your mind before the meeting; you reopen the same tile, now showing the approved state, type "prefer to stay anonymous for this one" in the Revoke reason field, and click Revoke approval. HQ stops seeing your name immediately, though if a leaderboard snapshot already went out before you revoked, that snapshot itself doesn't get recalled.

Related reading

• Reading the consent hero
• Asks awaiting your response
• Consent Requests: your data-visibility inbox
• How benchmarks work
• Reading a benchmark
• The decision workspace

Data sources