Sam Spade wrote:

Clearances
direct-to the IF on RNAV approaches is now legal provided certain
protocols are observed.

It has been in the AIM for perhaps a year now. ;-)

What are the protocols? I just took a look through what I thought were the
likely parts of the AIM and didn't find anything about this. Do you have a
specific section I should look at?

In any case, if they're allowed to clear you direct to an IF, then the
databases should start including the IFs in the "where do you want to start
the approach from?" menus.