Approval Workflows for Asset Publishing

Table of Contents

Overview
Initial Publication (Publisher's Perspective)
Initial Publication (Approver's Perspective)
Asset Update (Publisher's Perspective)
Asset Update (Approver's Perspective)

Overview

Approvals allow a domain administrator to approve assets before they are published publically.  The paragraphs below describe the process from the points of view of the user doing the publishing and the user doing the approving.

Initial Publication (Publisher's Perspective)

When you create a new asset and click “Publish” for the initial publication, you are prompted to select the permissions with an audience selector modal. If “Public” visibility is selected, the publish button will change to “Submit for Approval”. Once the asset is submitted, the Action Bar indicates that the asset is “Awaiting Approval”, and the following are true:

• It is effectively a private asset.
• It is not discoverable in the catalog.
• It is not visible to non-administrators in the Asset Manager.
• It is not accessible to anyone without access to private assets.
• It must be withdrawn to be updated.
• Any audience changes will remove it from the approval queue.

Before any edits can be made, the draft must be withdrawn from the approval queue, and attempting to edit an asset while it is pending approval will prompt you to remove it from the approval queue. If the asset is withdrawn from the queue and you want to resubmit it, simply select “Manage Viewers” from the Action Bar or the Asset Manager and select “Public” visibility again. The asset is then sent to an administrator for approval. If you are subscribed to notifications, you will be notified when your asset is approved. If approved, it will immediately become public. If rejected, it will remain private until it is re-submitted for approval.

Initial Publication (Approver's Perspective)

Navigate to the approval queue by clicking on Administration -> Approvals. From the approval queue, you can see all assets that are pending approval. Selecting an asset in the queue will take you to the draft that is pending approval. Once you have reviewed the asset, you can either "Approve" or "Reject" it by selecting the appropriate button next to the approval record. Clicking "Approve" will give you a modal with a box to add a note to your approval (this note will be emailed to the user if they are subscribed to email notifications). After clicking "Approve" from this modal, the asset will immediately become public and accessible to anyone directly via URL, in the Asset Manager, and—depending on your data catalog settings—also in the catalog. This action can be undone by navigating to the asset and changing the public visibility. If the asset is not ready to be released to the public, click “Reject”. This will give you a modal with a box to add a note to your rejection (this note will be emailed to the user if they are subscribed to email notifications). After clicking “Reject” from this modal, the asset will be rejected and effectively private, meaning it will not be publicly accessible nor will it show up in the catalog, and it will only be available to publishers, collaborators, and administrators on the platform. This action can be undone by navigating to the asset and changing the visibility to public.

To view past approval actions, you can click the link to “Approval History” in the lower right corner of the approval queue, or navigate to the activity log and select the Approvals tab at the top.

Asset Update (Publisher's Perspective)

This section is only relevant if you have elected to require manual approval for asset updates. 

If you edit a previously published public asset, the "Update" button will now read "Submit for Approval." Clicking this button will submit your draft for approval, and the Action Bar will then indicate that the draft is "Awaiting Approval." When the draft is pending approval, the following are true:

• It is effectively a private draft.
• The published copy does not change and remains public.
• The draft update is not visible to non-administrators in the Asset Manager.
• The draft update is not accessible to anyone without access to private drafts.
• It must be withdrawn to be updated.
• Any audience changes will remove it from the approval queue.

Before any edits can be made, the draft must be withdrawn from the approval queue, and attempting to edit an asset while it is pending approval will prompt you to remove it from the approval queue. If the asset is withdrawn from the queue and you want to resubmit it, simply select “Manage Viewers” from the Action Bar or the Asset Manager and select “Public” visibility again. The asset is then sent to an administrator for approval. If you are subscribed to notifications, you will be notified when your asset is approved (note: check your approval settings). If your asset is approved, it will immediately update the public copy. If it is rejected, it will remain a private draft until it is re-submitted for approval.

Asset Update (Approver's Perspective)

This section is only relevant if you have elected to require manual approval for asset updates. 

When an asset update is submitted for approval and you have notifications enabled for approvals, you will receive a notification that an asset is awaiting approval. To approve an asset update, navigate to the approval queue by clicking on Administration -> Approvals. From the approval queue, you can see all assets that are pending approval. Selecting an asset in the queue will take you to the draft that is pending approval, and you will also see a link to the published version of that asset. After clicking "Approve" from this modal, the asset will immediately become public and accessible to anyone directly via URL, in the Asset Manager, and—depending on your data catalog settings—also in the catalog. This action cannot be undone. If the asset is not ready to be released to the public, click “Reject”. This will give you a modal with a box to add a note to your rejection (this note will be emailed to the user if they are subscribed to email notifications). After clicking “Reject” from this modal, the asset will be rejected and effectively private, meaning it will not be publicly accessible nor will it show up in the catalog, and it will only be available to publishers, collaborators, and administrators on the platform. This action can be undone by navigating to the asset and changing the visibility to the public.