Approvals in the User Portal

1. Overview

Approvals are individually granted permissions for particular automations of OptionsApp. They are held in the user portal in an area of their own, named Approvals, alongside the other settings of the account. OptionsApp itself only displays their state and refers to the portal for every change.

Four automations are approved in this way. Without an approval, OptionsApp does not perform the function concerned, and certain types of trade are not opened.

2. Why Approvals Exist

These four automations intervene in a running position or open trades that would otherwise not be opened. OptionsApp therefore performs them only when a permission is in place.

No other function of OptionsApp is affected. They are configured in the trade template and in the settings as before.

3. The Four Approvals

Rebuilding of close orders when a leg becomes untradeable. If a leg of a combo is no longer tradeable, or no longer has a valid market price, the broker can no longer price the combo as a whole. With this approval, OptionsApp may adjust the close order, remove long legs from it and buy back nearly worthless short positions separately. Details: Rebuilding of close orders when a leg becomes untradeable.

Reuse of existing long positions. OptionsApp may use a long position for a new trade that was left open by a trade in the same account that has already been stopped or closed, instead of buying an additional contract. Spread width, maximum loss and margin requirement of the new trade may therefore differ from the trade template. Details: Reuse Longs.

Overlapping positions across trades. OptionsApp may open a trade that runs counter to a position held by another running trade in the same account. The broker nets the two in the portfolio, so the portfolio view no longer reflects the individual trades separately there. Applies to options, stocks, ETFs and futures. Details: Overlapping Trades.

Orders outside regular trading hours. OptionsApp may act outside regular trading hours. What is possible there depends on the instrument and on the rules of the exchange, not on OptionsApp. Details: Trading outside regular market hours.

4. Granting and Withdrawing an Approval

By default, no approval is granted at the start. Nothing is preset, and there is no collective confirmation. Every point is granted individually.

How to proceed:

• Open the Approvals area in the user portal.
• Click the empty checkbox of the point concerned. The dialog opens with the full explanatory text; the same dialog can also be opened without clicking the box, through the details link on that row.
• Read the text and tick the box under "Confirmation required:". The button that grants the approval stays disabled until the box is ticked.
• Grant the approval. The row then shows "Approved on" with the date.

The dialog is available in German and in English; the language is chosen in the header of the dialog. What is stored is the version that was on screen at the moment of confirmation.

Clearing the checkbox in the list withdraws the approval. This takes effect immediately and without a dialog.

A change takes effect in OptionsApp only once the app has read the state again. That happens automatically every three minutes. To avoid waiting, use "Refresh approvals" under Settings in OptionsApp; the change then applies at once.

5. Effect on Running Trades

Every trade carries the state of the approvals that applied when it was opened. An approval granted or withdrawn later affects newly opened trades only and has no effect whatsoever on running trades.

A running trade therefore continues to behave as agreed when it was opened, even if the approval has since been removed.

6. What Happens Without an Approval

The moment at which a missing approval becomes apparent differs from point to point.

• Rebuilding of close orders and orders outside regular trading hours take effect as early as saving the trade template. The setting remains selectable, but the template cannot be saved, and the message names the missing approval.
• Overlapping positions across trades takes effect at runtime. The trade is then not opened as long as another running trade in the same account holds an opposing position in the same financial instrument.
• Reuse of existing long positions holds no trade back. Without this approval, OptionsApp buys a separate contract for every trade.

7. The Notice at the First Start After the Update

Anyone who used OptionsApp before version 2.0 sees a one-time notice at the first start of the new version and after logging in to the user portal. It names the four points and states that they are deactivated by default.

The notice keeps appearing until it has been acknowledged once. Trades already running are not affected by the change.

8. Validity and Updates to the Text

An approval applies to the user account and therefore to all sessions and all machines on which that account is used.

If the text of an approval changes in substance, the point is marked in the list as requiring review again. It then counts as no longer approved and has to be confirmed again against the new text.

9. What Is Stored

For every confirmation, the date, the time, the confirmed text version and the language in which the text was displayed are stored. The same applies to the withdrawal of an approval.