Information for reviewers and approvers

Review this topic of you have been invited to review and sign a Document in your organization's Polarion portal, but are unsure what you need to do.

Access a Document

Normally you receive an email or other electronic message from the owner of a specification or other Document requesting your review and signature. This message should contain a link to the Document in your organization's Polarion portal. Simply click the link to open your default web browser and navigate to the Document in the portal. If you are not already logged on, you must do so, after which the Document you need to review opens. The Signatures sidebar should be visible, and the My Signatures tab selected.

Review

Sign or Decline

Save

If you are already logged on to the portal, Documents awaiting your signature are listed, with links, in your My Polarion page (assuming the page has not been customized to remove this listing).

Signature options

After you have reviewed the Document, you have three options:

  1. Sign — Click the Sign button in the Signatures sidebar. You can optionally add a comment.

    By this action you signify that you agree that the Document in its current state can transition to the next step in the workflow.

  2. Decline — Click the Decline button. You should also add a comment stating your reasons for declining.

    By this action you signify that you do not agree that the Document in its current state can transition to the next step in the workflow.

  3. Add Comment — State questions or discussion points for the author or other stakeholders, without signing or declining.

    By commenting only, with no other action, you may be blocking the Document from moving to the next step in the workflow, depending on the signature policy configured for the action you are asked to sign. You can see the signature policy in the All Signatures tab of the Signatures sidebar.

Warning:

After taking one of the above actions, be sure to click Save on the Document Editor toolbar, or use the Save keyboard shortcut to save the Document. If you leave the Document without saving, your signature action and any comments are not logged.

What your signature means

When you sign a Document, you are not necessarily signifying final approval of the Document. You are only signifying that you agree that it can move to the next stage of the development process, as configured in the project workflow. For example, you may have been asked to sign the workflow action Send to Review, that transitions the Document's status from Draft to In Review. By signing, you signify that you agree that the Document is ready to that transition.

Document-related signatures are U.S. CFR 21 Part 11 compliant secure electronic signatures. When you click Sign, a dialog box appears showing a message asking you to explicitly enter your user name, followed by one asking for your password. There are two steps to ensure that the electronic signature is compliant with most standards.

The automated Document history records the data required for regulatory compliance, including your user name and the date-time of your signature.

The action may be configured with a signature policy such as all invited users must sign. Even if your signature results in the signature policy being satisfied, the action of signing does not actually perform the workflow action and transition the Document to the next Status. The Document author or owner or manager must explicitly do the transition in the Status field of the Document Properties sidebar.