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Overview

Content reviews are a crucial part of most workflows.

Often called "Approvals", they are characterised by a decision to Approve or Reject the content and, based on that decision, the workflow will generally transition to another state.

Defining reviews

One or more reviews can be added to a state using the {approval} macro:

{workflow:name=Reviews}
   {state:In Progress|submit=Review}
   {state}
   {state:Review|approved=Approved|rejected=In Progress}
      {approval:Technical Review|assignable=true}
   {state}
   {state:Approved}
   {state}
{workflow}

The approved and rejected parameters on the {state} macro determine which states to transition to if the review is Approved or Rejected

Reviewers

The people who make decision to Approve or Reject are called Reviewers.

The settings of the {approval} macro determine who can review, or, if users are allowed to assign reviewers, who can be assigned.

All the reviewers must reach agreement before the review will be considered Approved or Rejected. You can use Events to change this behaviour, for example to facilitate Fast-tracked Rejections.

Multi-group reviews

In cases where more than one team of reviewers is required, just add more {approval} macros to the state.

Permissions

By default, a user must have Edit or Admin permissions in order to take part in a content review.

However, if the App configuration is set to allow anyone to view Workflow Activity and Drafts then users with View permission, so long as they are logged in to Confluence, will be able to take part in reviews (since version 4.6).

Credentials

Reviewers can optionally be required to verify their credentials before making a review.

See: Reviewer AuthenticationCredentials prompt

Notifications

By default, assignees and page watchers will receive notifications about the review progress, and all interactions will be tracked in the Activity Report - Content.

Approval role 

Use the optional approval role feature to record the roles that your approvers are performing. This is a more flexible method of capturing roles compared to named reviews, and allows you to easily assign ad hoc roles when necessary. 

When creating a workflow using Workflow Builder, to use approval roles, open the advanced section of 'Edit approval' and tick 'Enable roles'

Roles can also be enabled in the {approval} macro by including the roles=true  parameter.

Macros

Events

All aspects of the review process generate Events, which can be used to Trigger Actions.

Reviewer assignment events:

  • pageapprovalassigned
  • newsapprovalassigned
  • approvalunassigned

Approval events:

  • pageapproved
  • newsapproved
  • pagerejected
  • newsrejected

App configuration

SettingWhereNotes
Workflow Activity and Drafts Visibility

Who can see the workflow and draft content?

If set to Everyone, then View-only users can also participate in the review.

Page Update Reset ApprovalDuring an active review, if the content is updated should existing approvals be reset?
Approval CommentShould comments be mandatory when participating in a content review?
Approval – AssigneeShould assigned reviewers receive email notifications about the content review?
.approval.minquerySet how many characters must be typed when searching for reviewers

Examples

See also

Workflow Authoring Guide:

User Guide:

Reporting Guide: