The admin quorum is a group (of at least one admin) who must approve certain vault actions. You can configure the number of admins required to approve vault actions. In Utila, the quorum can be set to either 1 or 2 approvers.
The admin quorum setting determines how many approvers are needed for a vault action to proceed. This affects both the security level and operational workflow of your vault management.
When the admin quorum's approval is needed
For each transaction rule, you decide if it needs approval, and if so, by how many admins in the quorum.
When the quorum is set to 1, the initiating admin's action counts as an approval, and no additional approvals are needed. This setting prioritizes speed and simplicity.
When the quorum is set to 2, both the initiating admin's action and one additional admin's approval are required. This enhances security by ensuring at least two admins review critical actions. Admins can view and complete pending approvals in the Utila mobile app (Vault Actions > Pending).
There are also a number of other vault actions that require approval by the admin quorum:
Changing the admin quorum
Transaction policies
Compliance policies
Actions related to managing users and their devices, and creating a user group
Actions related to the address book and creating an address book group
Changing the vault name and wallet name
Vault backups and recovery
And more...
Changes to the admin quorum
Changing the quorum requires approval by the existing quorum, and all pending requests must be handled by the previous quorum. Only after the previous quorum has handled every pending request, can a new admin quorum take over. This is to avoid abuse of changing the quorum mechanism to bypass the previous quorum.
Admins can configure the quorum based on their operational needs. This flexibility allows teams to balance security and efficiency according to their requirements.
For details, see Set the admin quorum.