# Approve and resolve suggestions

> Accept, deny, plan, implement, duplicate and restore Aethor suggestions

Staff can resolve a suggestion from its message, by public suggestion number, or through the private manage panel.

## Open the staff manage panel

Open the suggestion message's **Apps** menu and choose `suggestion-manage`. The panel is private to the moderator who opened it.

From the panel, staff can:

- edit the suggestion text
- add a staff comment
- Accept, Deny, Plan or Implement the suggestion
- mark it as a Duplicate of another suggestion
- add a reason and choose whether to announce the action publicly

The dedicated context-menu commands such as `suggestion-accept` and `suggestion-deny` remain available as direct shortcuts.

## Choose the outcome

| State       | Use it when                                                |
| ----------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- |
| Accepted    | Staff agrees with the idea, without committing to a date. |
| Denied      | Staff decides not to pursue the idea.                     |
| Planned     | The idea is intended for future work.                     |
| Implemented | The requested change is available.                        |
| Duplicate   | Another suggestion already represents the same idea.      |

Labels, colors and destination channels can be changed per suggestion setup. A server can rename `Accepted` to something such as `Approved` or `Shipping` without changing the stored workflow state.

## Add a reason or comment

A decision can include a reason. With state-history display enabled, transitions are rendered on the latest suggestion card with the moderator and timestamp.

`suggestion-comment` adds a staff note without changing the state. It works on open and resolved suggestions. Enable its anonymous option to hide the moderator's displayed name; this does not hide the suggestion author.

When you change a suggestion's state or add a comment, the author and anyone [following](/docs/suggestions/suggesting) the suggestion get a direct message, unless they turned suggestion DMs off. The moderator making the change is never DMed.

Author and follower messages use different wording. Both include the server and suggestion preview, show the configured state color, and provide View, Unfollow and DM-preference controls. See [the notification examples](/docs/suggestions/suggestion-notifications).

## Move a suggestion again

Suggestions can move directly between any states. For example, a denied suggestion can later become Planned, then Implemented. Applying its current state again is rejected.

Use `suggestion-restore` to reopen a resolved suggestion in the main suggestion channel. Votes and media are retained, but Discord creates a new message, so the message ID changes.

## Reward roles

A setup can hand the suggestion author a role when their idea reaches a state. In the dashboard, open **Reward roles** and pick an Accepted role, an Implemented role, or both; use Clear to remove one. When staff accept or implement the suggestion, Aethor adds the matching role to the author.

When you pick a role, Aethor checks whether it can grant it. Aethor needs Manage Roles, and the role must sit below both Aethor's own top role and your own highest role. The second check prevents a moderator from handing out a role higher than their own. A role that fails either check is rejected in the dashboard instead of being saved. If a later grant fails because roles were reordered, the state change still goes through and only the role is skipped.

## Permissions

Moderation commands default to members with Manage Messages. Change command access under **Server Settings → Integrations → Aethor**. Aethor needs access to the current suggestion channel and any configured state channel.

If new suggestions should require approval before members see them, configure the [review queue](/docs/suggestions/review-queue).