"Admin Approval Required" When Connecting Outlook — What It Means and How to Fix It
You’ve signed up for Hetk, clicked “Continue with Microsoft,” and instead of the usual permissions screen you see this:
Needs admin approval Hetk Calendar Sync needs permission to access resources in your organization that only an admin can grant.
This isn’t a bug in Hetk. It’s a security setting in your organization’s Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) tenant. Let’s walk through what’s happening and how to resolve it.
Why this happens
Microsoft gives IT administrators control over which third-party apps can access company data. Many organizations set their consent policy to one of these:
- Only admins can approve apps — the most common setting in security-conscious organizations
- Users can approve verified publishers only — Hetk is a verified publisher, but some tenants restrict this further to a curated list
When either of these policies is active, individual users can’t grant Hetk access to their Outlook calendar on their own. An administrator needs to approve the app once, and then everyone in the organization can connect.
This is standard across the industry. If you’ve used Calendly, Reclaim, or any other calendar tool with a work Outlook account, you may have run into the same screen.
What permissions does Hetk request?
Hetk asks for two Microsoft Graph permissions, both delegated (meaning they act on behalf of the signed-in user, not the entire organization):
| Permission | What it does | Admin consent required? |
|---|---|---|
| Calendars.ReadWrite | Read and write events on the user’s calendars | No (by Microsoft’s default) |
| User.Read | Read the user’s basic profile (name, email) | No |
Neither of these permissions requires admin consent by default. The block comes from your organization’s tenant-level policy, not from the permissions themselves.
Hetk does not request access to other users’ calendars, mailboxes, or any organization-wide data.
How your IT admin can approve Hetk
There are two ways to do this. Both take less than a minute.
Option A: Use the direct admin consent link
Your IT admin can open this link in their browser while signed in with their admin account:
https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/adminconsent?client_id=8dd90edb-c881-459a-ac84-2a1fee8c5c94
They’ll see the permissions Hetk is requesting, click Accept, and the app is approved for all users in the organization.
Option B: Approve through the Entra admin center
- Go to Entra admin center
- Navigate to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications
- Search for Hetk Calendar Sync
- Click Permissions in the left sidebar
- Click Grant admin consent
After approval, any user in the organization can connect their Outlook calendar to Hetk without seeing the admin approval screen again.
What if you don’t have access to an admin?
If you can’t reach your IT admin directly, here are a few things you can try:
- Forward the admin consent link (above) to your IT department with a note explaining that you’d like to use Hetk for calendar sync
- Submit an IT request through your company’s ticketing system (ServiceNow, Jira Service Desk, etc.)
- Check if your org has a self-service request flow — some organizations let users request app approval through the Microsoft Entra admin consent workflow
In the meantime, if you also have a personal Microsoft account or a Google account, you can sign into Hetk with that and connect your personal calendars right away.
A note on security
We understand that IT administrators need to evaluate third-party apps carefully before granting access. Here are a few things worth knowing about Hetk:
- Verified publisher — Hetk is verified through the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program, which means Microsoft has confirmed our identity as a legitimate business
- Minimal permissions — we only request calendar read/write and basic profile access. No access to email, files, or other users’ data
- Delegated access only — Hetk acts on behalf of individual users, not as an application with organization-wide access
- Data handling — calendar event data is encrypted in transit and at rest. See our privacy policy and security overview for details
If your security team has questions about Hetk’s data handling or architecture, feel free to reach out at [email protected].
Still stuck?
If you’ve followed these steps and are still seeing the admin approval screen, or if you’re an IT admin running into issues granting consent, reach out to us at [email protected]. We’re happy to help.