Approvals

What is Approvals?

Approvals is a feature that allows administrators to moderate the public release of assets created by users on your domain. The "Approval Queue" refers to the user interface for the intermediate state between when a user has submitted an asset for approval and when an Approver has endorsed the asset for public release. While an asset is in the Approval Queue, Approvers can review the data and metadata to determine if it is ready to be released. By default, only Site Administrators can approve submissions, so the Approval Queue itself is only accessible to these users. However with Custom Roles on the Enterprise Data Platform, it is possible to create more roles with permissions to either configure approvals settings, approve assets, or both. To either configure approvals settings, approve assets, or both, navigate to the Approvals page at Administration > Approvals. 

How Do I Configure My Approval Policy?

An "Approval Policy" allows you to select whether to automatically approve all assets submitted for public release or to require manual approval by an Approver. Select your preferred Approval Policy by navigating to Administration > Approvals > Settings. 

For more information on configuring approvals and the different options, please see our article here.

You can then edit your settings by clicking on Edit and choosing your policy. Click Save to save your settings.

When changing settings, you will see a warning if the setting change will impact pending assets.

How do Assets get Added to the Approval Queue?

When an asset is published to an audience whose approval policy is set to ‘Manual’ for the first time, it will be sent to the Approval Queue. It will also be sent to the queue if the asset’s visibility is changed from its current audience to a larger audience. For example, if a site has a Manual approval policy set for both Public Approvals and Internal Approvals, then any asset whose audience changes from Private to Internal, Private to Public, or Internal to Public would be added to the Approval Queue.

How do I add other users as Approvers?

As an Administrator on the Enterprise Data Platform, you may add other users as Approvers for both the Internal and Public Approval Queues. On the Approvals Settings page at Administration > Approvals > Settings, navigate to the Approvers section of the page. In the Approvers table, you will see all Administrators listed as Approvers of both queues by default.

In addition to Administrators, other users can be added as Approvers by clicking the “Add Approvers” button. This will open the Add Approver modal where you may search for other users on your site and select which queues they may have access to review. However, not all users on your site are eligible to become Approvers. A user must have the following site permissions to become an Approver: “Edit all datasets, charts, maps, and other views” and “View all datasets, charts, maps, and other views”. Any user who does not have both of these permissions will not return in the Add Approvers search. On the Enterprise Data Platform, user permissions can be managed via Custom Roles at Administration > Roles & Permissions.

How do I Approve or Reject an Asset?

Navigate to Administration > Approvals. Any assets awaiting approval will appear under the "My Queue" tab. In order to Approve or Reject an asset, click on "Approve" or "Reject" under the Actions column.

How do I Find Previously Reviewed Assets?

To find a previously reviewed asset, you can access the Activity Log and filter for "Approvals" events (i.e Approval approved for a public audience or Asset Rejected for public Audience.)

You can also access this by using the Approval History link at the bottom of the screen.

What if I Accidentally Reject an Asset I meant to Approve, or Vice Versa?

• If you rejected an asset that should be approved, you can resubmit the asset by setting its viewers to public.
• If you approved an asset that should be rejected, set the viewers of the asset to private.
• You can read more about changing viewers here.

What Happens if an Asset is Rejected because the Asset Owner Needs to Make Changes?

The Approver can add a note to their rejection decision—such as “hide Address column"—for the asset owner to review in the notification email that is sent to them upon rejection. The asset owner can then make the requested changes and resubmit the asset into the Approval Queue by setting its Audience to Public.

How do Asset Owners Know if One of their Assets is in the Queue?

When viewing assets in the asset list, asset owners can look at their "My Assets" tab and check the visibility of each asset using the Audience column. Assets in the approval queue awaiting a decision will have a listed Audience of “Private (Awaiting approval)”. Asset owners will also be able to use an “Awaiting approval” quick-filter checkbox on the asset list to view only assets that are currently awaiting review by an Approver.