Approval failed — error catalogue

Issue

You attempt to approve a record in ZoneApprovals, but the approval fails. The error you see depends on the root cause. This article covers the following errors:

• Permission Violation: You need the 'Lists - Tax Details Tab'
• Approver email address is missing
• Attachment or message exceeds 15 MB

Solution

Find your error below and follow the steps for that scenario.

Permission Violation: You need the 'Lists - Tax Details Tab'

This error occurs because the ZA Approve/Reject UI Action SL script is configured to run under an Execute As Role that does not have permission to access the Tax Details Tab. Two updates are required: add the missing permission to the role, then update the script deployment to use that role.

Step 1: Update the application role

1. Go to Setup > Users/Roles > Manage Roles.
2. Locate Zone Approvals (Application Role).
3. Click Customize.
4. Select the Lists tab.
5. Add the Tax Details Tab permission and set the level to Full.
6. Click Save.

Step 2: Update the script deployment

1. Go to Customization > Scripting > Scripts.
2. Locate the ZA Approve/Reject UI Action SL script.
3. Open the Deployments tab.
4. Click Edit on the relevant deployment.
5. In the Execute As Role field, select the role updated in Step 1.
6. Click Save.

Once both updates are saved, retry the approval.

Why this happens

ZoneApprovals runs approval and rejection actions using a designated Execute As Role on the ZA Approve/Reject UI Action SL script. On accounts using SuiteTax, NetSuite requires that any role performing approval actions also has explicit access to the Tax Details Tab. If this permission is absent, the script cannot complete the approval and surfaces a permission violation error.

Approver email address is missing

ZoneApprovals requires a valid email address on the approver's Employee record to process the approval workflow. Add the missing email address to the record and retry.

How to add the missing email address

1. Go to the approver's Employee record.
2. Verify that the Email field is populated.
3. Enter a valid email address if the field is empty.
4. Click Save.
5. Retry the approval.

Why this happens

ZoneApprovals sends approval notifications and processes workflow actions using the approver's email address stored on their Employee record in NetSuite. If this field is blank, ZoneApprovals cannot route the approval and the action fails.

Attachment or message exceeds 15 MB

ZoneApprovals sends approval notifications by email, and NetSuite enforces a 15 MB size limit on outbound messages. Reduce the total size of attachments included with the approval to bring the message below the limit.

How to reduce attachment size

1. Review the files attached to the record being approved.
2. Compress or reduce the size of any large files, such as PDFs or OCR-generated documents.
3. Remove attachments that are not required for the approval decision.
4. Confirm the total size of the approval email and its attachments is below 15 MB.
5. Retry the approval.

Why this happens

ZoneApprovals routes approval notifications through NetSuite's email system, which enforces a 15 MB per-message limit. Large attachments — particularly PDFs or documents processed through optical character recognition (OCR) — can push the approval email over this threshold.

ZoneApprovals encountered an unknown error

If you see the message ZoneApprovals encountered an unknown error. It is recommended to contact Zone Customer Support by navigating to Setup > ZoneApprovals > Customer Support, or if your error persists after following the steps above, reach out to the Support Team directly.

Important: Contact Zone Customer Support by going to Setup > ZoneApprovals > Customer Support.