Getting Started with the Approval Center

Before starting to use the Approval Center feature, there are some preliminary issues with which you should become familiar:

Roles and permissions: Important for project leaders and administrators. Make sure that all users responsible for reviewing and approving Work Items have the necessary role assignments with the necessary permissions.
Workflow Configuration: Important for administrators and project leaders. Others may find the information useful to better understand underlying concepts, but it is not essential in order to find and approve the Work Items you are responsible for reviewing.
Approvals Interface: Important for everyone involved in the approval process. You need to familiarize yourself with approvals-related user interface features in order to find, review, and approve/disapprove the items for which you are designated as an Approver.
Require a signature when approving a Work Item: Polarion can be configured so that a Work Item's workflow status and the item itself require an electronic signature to complete the approval process.

Roles and permissions

There are several user permissions that provide security for approvals.

Approve Work Items: To be able to approve Work Items, users must be assigned the project role project_approver, and this role should be granted the permission named Permission to APPROVE/DISAPPROVE.

Approve as Different User: To allow users to mark items as approved or disapproved by another user (that is a different user other than themselves), an administrator can grant the Work Item permission named Permission to APPROVE/DISAPPROVE as ANOTHER USER.

Resolve Approval Comments: To be able to resolve Approval Comments, users must be granted Permission to RESOLVE COMMENTS.

For information on user permissions, see Configure User Permissions.

Review and Configure Workflow

Your approach here depends on whether you need to run an approval phase for a new project, or in an existing project where approvals are not configured into the workflow.

New Projects:

For new projects, it is recommended to create them using one of the project templates delivered with Polarion version 2013-SR1 (or later). Workflow in these templates is preconfigured to support a formal approval process. After creating the project, you should review the workflow for each Work Item type and make sure it is okay with your process. In particular, review the Actions section of the Workflow Designer page, looking at the Actions on each row in the table (see links below).

Polarion's project templates are designed to meet the needs of a wide variety or organizations. However, if the default workflow, including workflow statuses and actions, do not meet the needs of your project you either need to create a custom version of one of the stock project templates, or customize the workflows of the specific project. In this case, see these topics:

Configure Work Item Workflow (See this topic if you find you need to customize any part of your project's workflow. In particular, see the subtopic Workflow for Approvals.)
Customize Project Templates (See this topic if you find you need to customize your project's workflow, and the same customization is needed for all or many other projects.)

Existing Projects

If you have an existing project created from a project template prior to Polarion version 2013-SR1, and that project still needs to go through a formal process of approval of requirements or other types of Work Items, you may want to customize your project's workflow to include or better support approvals by using the Approval Center feature.

The easiest approach is to create a sandbox project based on one of the new project templates, and in that project review the workflow configuration. You can then duplicate that configuration in your existing project. Be sure to edit the Actions and check for workflow conditions and functions, incorporating them "as-is", or tweaking them in your existing project. See Workflow Functions and Configure Work Item Workflow, especially the subtopic Workflow for Approvals.

Electronic Signatures

In some industries you must meet strict regulatory requirements for traceability and be able to document when requirements were approved and by whom, ensuring that only authorized people can "sign off" on them. Your administrator can configure Polarion to support electronic approval signature that will satisfy many regulatory requirements in many industries. Be sure to check that electronic signatures for requirements approval are allowed by the body whose regulations you must meet. For information, see Require Signatures for Workflow Actions.

Note:

If a Work Item that has been approved using an electronic signature is duplicated, the new Work Item does not show any indication of the source item's signature, and the new item is not approved or electronically signed. New duplicate items must be reviewed, approved, and e-signed.

Approval Center interface

The main user interface component for reviewing and approving Work Items is the Approvals panel. In a Document, it is one of the panels available in the Document Sidebar. You can show and hide it with the Sidebar menu in the Document Editor toolbar. In the Table or Tree view of the Work Item Tracker, you can find it on the panels menu, on the toolbar next to the Query Builder. Refer to the following figure to locate the access control:

How to access the Approvals panel from a LiveDoc or the Tracker:

Document editor

Work Item tracker

The Approvals panel has two tabbed pages:

All Approvals: Reports statistics of the current state of all Work Items, regardless of who is designated as Approver(s). Also enables you to invite people to approve Work Items by providing a URL which you can paste into email or instant messages. When a Work Item is selected, this tab also provides a button for adding an Approval Comment, displays the names of users who are assigned to approve, have approved, and have disapproved the current item, and displays all Approval Comments for the Work Item, if any.
My Approvals: Reports statistics of all Work Items for which you are designated as an Approver. When a Work Item is selected, this tab also provides buttons for approving or disapproving the current item, provides another button for adding an Approval Comment to the item, displays the names of other users who are assigned as Approvers of the current item and what action each of those users has taken, and displays all Approval Comments for the Work Item, if any.

No selection

Work Item selected

No selection

Work Item selected

Understanding the approval statistics

Approval statistics are color coded in the user interface (see previous figure).

Outstanding - All Approvals: No user is currently designated as Approver. My Approvals: You are not currently designated as Approver.
Waiting - All Approvals: Waiting for approval by at least one user and no user has disapproved it. My Approvals: You are designated as an Approver, and the reported number of items are waiting for you to review and approve them.
Approved - All Approvals: The item is approved by all the currently designated Approvers. My Approvals: You are designated as an Approver, and you have approved the item.
Disapproved - All Approvals: The item is disapproved by at least one of the currently designated Approvers. It is reported as Disapproved until such time as the disapproval is resolved, even if one or more Approvers have approved it.
My Approvals: You are designated as an Approver, and you have disapproved the item.

The Approvals panel statistics are for the current context such as Document or project.

Approvers are normally designated automatically by the workflow engine on the basis of some role ('project_approver', for example), or an explicit list specified in the workflow configuration. The list of designated Approvers appears in the Approvers field of a Work Item when viewed in the Table view. It is possible to add Approvers to the list manually.