Review and Approve Work Items Overview

Approval Center

Polarion supports a formal approval process for any type of Work Item through the Approval Center feature. The preconfigured project templates delivered beginning with version 2013-SR1 have preconfigured support for approvals.

The out-of-box approvals support delivers several features and capabilities for organizations that need a formal approval process with an audit trail.

Why it's worth using

  • Workflow Integration: Approvals are integrated into the workflow of Work Items, including all types of requirements. Approvals can be added to the workflow of any Work Item type that does not already have it, including your own custom types. Integrating approvals into the workflow ensures that steps and people are not skipped or bypassed in the approval process.

    Workflow also automates some tasks, such as designating users as Approvers and notifying them to review and approve items. For example, when a Work Item transitions from an initial draft status to a ready for approval status, a specific list of users, and/or all users whose user profile includes a certain role can be automatically designated as Approvers. These users' names are added to the Approving Users list in the Approvals field of the Work Item, and email notifications are sent to them.

  • History and Audit Trail: An automatic, reportable history of the approval process is automatically maintained, so it is always be possible to find out who approved what and when.

  • Easy for Approvers: The Approval Center is designed to facilitate users who are designated to review and approve or disapprove items:

    • Links in email notifications lead users directly to items they should review and approve or disapprove.

    • The portal user interface makes it fast and simple for any user to access the items awaiting his/her approval.

    • Approvers can approve or disapprove multiple items at once in a single operation.

    • Approvers can discuss items with other stakeholders in threaded Approval Comments.

    • Approvers can choose to work in a document interface (assuming the items are contained in a LiveDoc Document) or in the Tracker tool.

    • Organizations can obtain inexpensive Reviewer licenses for use by people whose only role in projects is to review and approve Work Items. The Reviewer license also enables users to review and approve Work Items on Apple iOS mobile devices using Polarion's ALM2GO app.

  • Easy for Managers: The Approval Center also helps project managers, team leaders, and others to track and manage the approval process:

    • Easily review, respond to, and resolve Approval Comments, as well as create new Approval Comments.

    • Hide or reveal resolved Approval Comments.

    • Explicitly invite users to review and approve items via email or instant message.

    • Quickly review the current state of the approval process for any item in real time.

    • Reopen approvals for revised items that were disapproved, removing the disapproval state and starting the review and approval process again.