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Applying Comala Document Approval to an Individual Page

Overview

Any individual user with Edit permissions in a space can choose to add and apply the Comala Document Approval app to individual blogs or pages.

Add and Apply the Approval

On a page, choose Page Tools and Add Approval:

A screen notification confirms that the Comala Document Approval app workflow has been successfully applied to the content:

The content byline item is added as a breadcrumb to the page subtitle:

The content is now considered as draft content and is in the default initial workflow state: the Review state. Only users with Edit or Admin permissions will be able to view the page or blog post.


Approval Workflow States

Adding the Comala Document Approval app applies a simple approval workflow to the content. The workflow consists of 3 states:

Workflow content reviews with approve and reject decisions can be undertaken in both the Review and Rejected states.

There are different transitions that can occur between each of the three states depending on the activity. Each content review has different destinations for the approve and reject decisions. There are also automatic transitions on editing and updating a page or blog post that is in either the Approved or Rejected state. 

Approve the content

By default, any user with Edit permissions can undertake the content review (the approval) to approve or reject the page or blog post. This is done through the approval pop-up:

The content review (approval) is characterised by the two buttons "Approve" and "Reject". Approving or rejecting the content will cause the page or blog post to transition (move) to another state in the workflow. The reviewer has the option choose Add comment. The comment will be included with any notifications of the approval.

In the Review state above:

  • an approval decision will publish the content to the Approved state, allowing users with View permissions to view the page or blog post
  • a rejection decision will move the content to another draft state, the Rejected state

Content in the Rejected state is also subject to a content review:

In the Rejected state above:

  • an approval will publish the content to the Approved state, allowing users with View permissions to view the page or blog post
  • a rejection decision will not move the workflow state, the page or blog post will remain in the Rejected state, but the workflow will record rejection decision

However, if the page or blog post is edited, the workflow will automatically transition back to the Review state.

Published content

The Approved state is the published version of the content:

The approval popup will display a message confirming the content has undergone an approval process. Once a version of the content has been approved, this published page or blog post can be seen by View-only users. 

If you are working on a draft, the published Approved version will still be available. View-only users will not be able to see any versions that are considered as draft, these are versions in either the Review or the Rejected states.

Assign a reviewer

One or more users can be assigned to undertake the content review. Simply choose +Add Reviewer, search and assign a reviewer:

Once a reviewer is chosen, as the assigner, you can choose Add note to send a note with the notification of the content review assignment to the assignee.

If a content review has been assigned to a specific user for review, all other users will be not be able to undertake that occurrence of the content review for that state - both the approve and reject buttons will be disabled. However, a user with Space Admin privileges can unassign the user and assign another user as a reviewer.

Multiple reviewers

Each content review can have more than one assignee. Simply choose +Add Reviewer, search and assign another reviewer. The avatar for each assignee will be added to the approval popup:

The status indicator circle will be a filled circle if the assignee accesses the page.  The approve and reject buttons will be disabled for all other users including those with Admin permissions.

Each of the assignees can either approve or reject the content. Each individual assignee decision will be shown in the content byline item and in the approval pop-up:

An assignee can change their decision if the other assignee for the approval has not undertaken the review, or has made a different decision:

All assignees must agree to approve (or reject) the content for any transition to occur. All individual review decisions will be recorded in the Page Activity Report.