About Reviews
Overview
A review artifact allows you to request artifact feedback and/or approval from stakeholders. Review artifacts can be set to one of two types: informal review (live artifacts), or formal review (baseline artifacts). You can only request approval or electronic signatures on artifacts if they are included in a formal review. If you create an informal review, review participants can add comments to artifacts, but the artifacts cannot be approved.
Note: A baseline must be sealed and published before you can include it in the review contents. This ensures that the artifacts do not change while the review is underway.
When the review is active, you can view the review status information to determine which individuals have started reviewing the artifacts and whether or not any of the artifacts have been approved.
Finding your review artifacts
Review artifacts are special artifacts that are treated somewhat differently than other artifacts in Blueprint. Review artifacts are stored in a separate location in Blueprint. You can find your project's baseline and review artifacts by clicking the Baselines and Reviews folder located below your project in the explorer panel of Blueprint:
After you click the Baselines and Reviews folder for your project, your baseline and review artifacts are displayed in the main content area.
Key Concepts
Reviewer and Approver Roles in Formal and Informal Reviews
A review artifact can be set to either a formal review or an informal review. Formal reviews contain sealed baseline artifacts, while informal reviews contain live artifacts.
- In a formal review (that is, sealed baseline artifacts), both reviewers and approvers have the ability to add comments to the artifacts. Approvers also have the ability to approve or disapprove artifacts. If the electronic signature option is enabled, approvers must verify their approvals/disapprovals via password or federated authentication. Reviewers cannot approve or disapprove artifacts.
- In an informal review (that is, live artifacts), both reviewers and approvers have the ability add comments to the artifacts. Reviewers cannot approve/disapprove artifacts in an informal review.
Review Status
The review can have one of the following statuses:
- Draft: The review has not yet been distributed to reviewers and approvers.
- Active: Reviewers and approvers have been notified about the review. Reviewers and approvers can view and comment on the review contents. Approvers can also approve or disapprove of review contents.
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Closed: Reviewers and approvers can no longer comment on the review contents after the review is closed. Approvers can no longer approve or disapprove the review contents.
Modifying an Active Review
When any review is active, you can still modify the list of review participants. Your ability to change other review parameters differs depending on whether you are modifying an Informal Review (live artifacts) or a Formal Review (baseline artifacts). The differences are:
- When an informal review is active, you can modify the review participants and change the review contents, but you cannot change the review to include baseline contents.
- When a formal review is active, you can modify the review participants and their approval permissions. You can also modify which artifacts are candidates for approval. You cannot, however, change the review content to include a different baseline.
Typical Usage of Reviews
Review artifacts can be beneficial at any phase in the project when you want to elicit feedback from others. Here's an example:
Example
Lewis, a business analyst, is working on a set of requirements. He is close to completion and would like to obtain feedback from a few individuals.
In this scenario, Lewis would create an Informal Review, which is a review containing live artifacts. Lewis can continue to change the artifacts, and reviewers will always see the most recent published artifact when they open the artifacts from the review.
Review artifacts are also useful when requirements are complete and final approval is required. Here's an example:
Example
Susan, a business analyst, is finished incorporating feedback from prior reviews that she has conducted. She is now confident that her artifacts are ready for approval.
In this scenario, Susan creates a baseline artifact. Next, she creates a review artifact and sets the type to Formal Review. Susan can then select the stakeholders that she wants to approve the requirements.
Review Artifact Properties
By default,
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Name: Indicates the name of the review.
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Id: Provides a unique identifier for the review. The Id cannot be modified.
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Type: Indicates the type of artifact.
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EndDate: Indicates the review deadline date.
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ReviewType: Indicates whether the review is formal or informal.
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ReviewURL: Indicates the URL to access the review.
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Status: Indicates the status of the review.
The review can have one of the following statuses:
- Draft: The review has not yet been distributed to reviewers and approvers.
- Active: Reviewers and approvers have been notified about the review. Reviewers and approvers can view and comment on the review contents. Approvers can also approve or disapprove of review contents.
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Closed: Reviewers and approvers can no longer comment on the review contents after the review is closed. Approvers can no longer approve or disapprove the review contents.
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Description: Provides a description of the review.
Your instance administrator can
Tasks
Viewing review status information
