Understanding Review Statuses

Status Overview

Reviews move through a simple lifecycle from the moment they are synced to when a response is published. Each status represents a stage in that lifecycle.

Status	Meaning	Action Required
Pending	An AI response has been generated and is awaiting your review.	Review the AI response and approve, edit, or skip it.
Scheduled	The response is set to auto-publish after a delay you configured (Auto Reply mode). It will post automatically when its time arrives.	None — but you can edit it before then, which sends it back to Pending.
Approved	You have approved the AI response and it is ready to be published to Google.	Click "Publish to Google" to post the response.
Published	The response has been successfully posted to your Google Business Profile.	No action needed — the response is live.
Publish Failed	An auto-publish attempt to Google did not succeed (for example, an expired Google connection).	Reconnect Google if needed, then publish the response manually.
Skipped	You have manually chosen to skip this review without responding.	No action needed, but you can undo this if you change your mind.

Pending Reviews

When a new review is synced and an AI response is generated, the review enters the "Pending" status. This is your review queue — these are the reviews that need your attention. The Reviews page defaults to showing pending reviews first so you can work through them efficiently.

Pro Tip

The number of pending reviews is displayed as a badge in the navigation menu, so you can always see at a glance how many reviews are waiting for your approval.

Scheduled Reviews

When a rating is set to Auto Reply with an auto-publish delay (for example, "After 3 hours"), the generated response enters the "Scheduled" status. It will publish to Google automatically once the delay elapses — StarReplies checks for due responses every 5 minutes.

Note

If you edit a scheduled response before it publishes, it moves back to Pending and will not auto-publish. This ensures a response you have touched always waits for your final approval.

Approved Reviews

Once you approve a response — either as-is or after editing — the review moves to "Approved" status. Approved reviews are ready to be published but have not been posted to Google yet. This intermediate status gives you a chance to batch-approve multiple reviews and then publish them all at once, or to hold responses for a final check before they go live.

Published Reviews

After you click "Publish to Google" and confirm the action, the response is posted to your Google Business Profile and the review status changes to "Published." A published badge and timestamp are displayed on the review card. Published responses are visible to anyone viewing your business on Google.

Important

Once a response is published to Google, it cannot be unpublished from within StarReplies. If you need to modify or delete a published response, you will need to do so directly through Google Business Profile.

Skipped Reviews

If you decide that a particular review does not need a response, you can skip it. Skipping moves the review out of your pending queue so it does not clutter your workflow. Skipped reviews are still visible in your dashboard when you apply the "Skipped" status filter. You can reverse a skip at any time by opening the review and selecting "Unskip," which returns it to the Pending status.