Managing Approve, Review, Endorse And Acknowledge Cycles

Cycle Management

The iGrafx Platform allows users to actively participate in ensuring that repository content is the best that it can be. Users can do the following:

1. Review content for correctness
2. Vote on which items in the repository should be designated as “approved,” and thus to be able to limit users to viewing only approved items in the repository
3. Provide an “endorsement” that the item has been viewed, understood (and is agreed with)
4. "Acknowledge" that they have seen an item

NEW Acknowledgement Cycles are a new feature. With the introduction of Acknowledgement cycles, Endorsement cycles can be reserved for the actual endorsement, support of an item.

In iGrafx, these actions are performed by these cycle types:

Creating a list of reviewers, approvers, endorsers or acknowledgers

To perform a cycle, you must first designate who will perform the action by assigning a Cycle Group to the item. Cycle Groups come in two flavors:

• Custom Cycle Groups (defined on each object):  You can create custom cycle groups if you have “Set Reviewers”, "Set Approvers", "Set Endorsers", "Set Acknowledgers"  permission for an item.  By default, new documents and files added to the repository are set to use a predefined cycle group defined by your administrator. These groups are not globally available but they can be converted to global, Named Cycle Groups.
• Named Cycle Groups (global): These groups are globally available for re-use and are created by your repository administrator and additional users with appropriate repository-level permission. See the Named Cycle Group topic for details.   

Create a simple Custom Cycle Group

1. Select an item via the Repository tree
2. Choose the MANAGE CYCLES tab
3. Click the type of cycle you wish to start
4. Under “Cycle Group”, click Change
5. In the “Select Cycle Group” drop down, choose Custom Cycle Group
6. Click CREATE CYCLE GROUP
7. Click ADD USER/GROUP
8. Search and Choose the applicable users that will be nominated to participate in the review cycle.  Choose at least 2 members/users.
   Note: Users must have a Server role and Repository role assigned or they will not be visible in the Add User dialog
9. Click CONFIRM SELECTION 
10. Once you’ve selected at least 2 participants, choose any cycle workflow by changing the drop-down displayed above the cycle group list
11. If desired, to change the workflow order, drag and drop the participant names in the displayed list

12. Click CREATE CYCLE GROUP and the Custom Cycle Group is created for this repository item. 

Create a more complex Cycle Group

iGrafx provides a flexible cycle workflow to review, approve, and endorse cycles. 

For example, if either Bill or Sally must approve first and then Lisa must approve, these steps are followed:

1. Perform above steps 1-6
2. Click ADD SUBGROUP  
3. Under the "Subgroup" heading:
   1. Click ADD USER/GROUP
   2. Add Bill and Add Sally
   3. Set the order to 1 of 2 need to complete the action
4. Above the "Subgroup" heading
   1. Click ADD USER/GROUP
   2. Add Lisa
   3. Set the order to All members need to complete the action in this order
      
      The page should now look like this:
      

      

5. Click SAVE CHANGES

See the Named Cycle Group topic if you wish to convert your Custom Cycle Group to a Named Cycle Group.  

Notifications

Your administrator defines the email notifications you'll receive regarding review, approve, endorse and acknowledgement cycles. Having email notifications configured also allows scheduling cycles to occur at specific points in time or on a recurring basis. In addition, users can Watch repository items and be emailed when these actions are occur on an item:

• Modified (checked in)
• Approved
• Commented on

See the Watch a Repository Item topic for instructions on how to Watch items.

Starting a Cycle

Once the Cycle Group has been defined, start the cycle to review, approve, endorse or acknowledge the item.

Users are notified of pending actions via:

• Alert icon

  

   next to their Platform login name (upper-right corner of Platform display)
• Email notifications (If configured by your administrator)

To start a cycle:

1. Choose the MANAGE CYCLES tab
2. Expand either Review Cycle, Approval Cycle, Endorsement Cycle, or Acknowledgement Cycle
3. You should have defined a Cycle Group for the item following the instructions above
4. To inspect and/or change the Cycle Group before starting the Cycle, click CHANGE on the “Current Cycle Group” line
5. Click START CYCLE NOW

Note that the cycle status shown at the upper right of the section is updated to “In-Progress”

Starting a Cycle on Multiple Items

To start a review, approve, endorse or acknowledge on multiple repository items with a single command:

1. Click the Expand button 

   

    above the repository tree
2. Click the check box 

   

   next to one or more object names
3. With the check box(s) selected 

   

   , click Manage Cycles in the lower right
4. Proceed to Step 2 in the above "Starting a Cycle" topic to choose either a Review Cycle, Approval Cycle, Endorsement Cycle, or Acknowledgement Cycle

You can also manage cycles on multiple repository items at once from the Contains section: 

1. Navigate to the parent of the objects you are managing
2. Expand the Contains section
3. Click the check box next to one or more object names
4. Click Manage Cycles (located in the bottom right)
5. Proceed to Step 2 in the above "Starting a Cycle" topic to choose either a Review Cycle, Approval Cycle, Endorsement Cycle, or Acknowledgement Cycle

Cycle behaviors

Review, Approve, and Endorsement cycles complete when the last cycle participant acts, or when the cycle group workflow conditions are met. Cycle managers can change participants in a running cycle, and changes made to Platform Cycle Groups are reflected in a running cycle.

In-Progress Cycle Group Participants

NEW Cycle members for Review, Approve and Endorsement cycles are now locked in when the cycle starts.  This provides the ability for Cycle managers to make changes to Platform cycle groups in preparation of future cycles without impacting work already underway. Cycle managers can choose to update a cycles members from the In-Progress cycle, or choose to push updates from the Cycle Groups, Group Assignment page.

Once a cycle has started, the In-Progress cycle shows the last time the cycle groups participants were updated.  Note that if you create a custom cycle group, or copy to a custom cycle group after the cycle has started, the option to UPDATE will not appear as the custom cycle group is no longer tied to the originating Cycle group.

 

Note that the 'Users Last Updated On' time shown is the last time the cycle group was checked for an update - not the last time the group changed.

In-Progress and Not Scheduled/Scheduled Cycle Sections

When a Review, Approve or Endorsement cycle starts, Cycle Managers will now see two sections for the Cycle type.  That's because the in-progress cycles settings and cycle group members are locked in when the cycle starts,  allowing a cycle manager to schedule a future cycle, or make changes to an upcoming scheduled cycle without changing the cycle already underway. 

Note that Cycle group members for a Not-In-Progress or Scheduled cycle are not locked in until the cycle starts.

Updating from an In-Progress Cycle

To update the cycle group members of an In-Progress cycle group

1. Select a repository item that you started a cycle on
2. Choose the MANAGE CYCLES tab
3. Expand the In-Progress Review Cycle, Approval Cycle, or Endorsement Cycle
4. Click the UPDATE button

Updating for multiple In-Progress Cycles

To update the cycle group members of multiple In-Progress cycles at the same time

1. Open the Repository Configuration area, Cycle Groups page
2. Choose the GROUP ASSIGNMENTS tab
3. Expand the Cycle Group you wish to update
4. Check the in-progress cycles you wish to update
5. Click UPDATE USERS

Acknowledgement cycles

Acknowledgement cycles are different.  They never complete⁺, and an acknowledgement cycles members update automatically as new users are added to, or removed from included Cycle Groups or Platform Cycle Groups.  This means that Acknowledgement cycles which are based on groups synchronized with a directory service automatically include new hires, or new team members.

Pause and Resume

⁺ While acknowledgement cycles don't complete after all the current cycle members have acted, they do react to Approval version changes, and can also be paused by the Cycle manager.

There are four resume options for paused Acknowledgement cycles.

Acknowledgement cycles can include Cycle groups with completion requirements, but when a cycle starts, all of the participants are collected up, and each member gets to acknowledge once (even if they appear in multiple included groups).  Completion requirements (2 out of 3, in this order) does not apply to Acknowledgement cycles.

Check the Cycle Status

When a cycle is In-Progress for an item, you may view pending actions that need to be completed for the cycle, and view the cycle log for what has occurred.

1. Select a repository item that you started a cycle on
2. Choose the MANAGE CYCLES tab
3. The pending actions and Cycle Log are listed under the “In-Progress Cycle” heading
4. If configured by your administrator and you want to send an email reminder to those users that have not yet taken action, click SEND REMINDERS NOW
5. If you want to schedule regular reminders to users with pending actions, click CHANGE INTERVAL

Acknowledgement Cycles

Acknowledgement cycles introduce new cycle status reporting capabilities targeted at large long-running cycles.  Acknowledgement cycle reporting graphically shows an overview of cycle progress.

For an In-Progress acknowledgement cycle, you can view the cycle participants in a paginated report with filtering by status.

1. In the "In-Progress Cycle" heading for the Acknowledgement, click VIEW CYCLE USERS

Acknowledgement Cycle users can be filtered by their cycle status, specifically Acknowledged, Pending, Overdue, Blocked, and Deleted.

Cycle Status Overview

Once a user has started a cycle, they can see all of their running cycles by visiting the Cycles List page.

Cycle managers are notified of pending cycles via:

• After clicking on their Platform login name (upper-right corner of Platform display) the active cycle count is shown on the Cycles List item

  

• Email notifications (If configured by your administrator)

Check Past Cycles

To check the log for past cycles:

1. Select a repository item
2. Choose the HISTORY tab
3. Click VIEW CYCLE next to the history item of interest. 

Cancel a Cycle

To cancel an In-Progress Cycle:

1. Select a repository item
2. Choose the MANAGE CYCLES tab
3. Expand the Review, Approval, or Endorsement Cycle that you wish to cancel
4. Click CANCEL IN-PROGRESS CYCLE
5. You are required to enter a Reason
6. Click END CYCLE  

Approval Cycle Indicators

When an item is nominated for approval, an orange icon is displayed with the item name to indicate voting is in-progress. 

If all required users vote yes, the document is approved and a green dot is placed on the icon to indicate the latest version of this item is now approved. If any of the required users vote no, a red icon is displayed and the approval cycle is ended.

The number of “Yes” votes for approving an item must match the rules setup in the approval cycle group configuration before it will become approved.

Below is a list of all the approval status indicators that may appear in the browser view of the repository tree:

There are no cycle icons for Review, Endorse and Acknowledge cycles.

Scheduling Cycles

You may schedule Review, Approval and Endorsement cycles to occur once at a specific point, or on a recurring schedule.

1. Select a repository item that you started a cycle on
2. Choose the MANAGE CYCLES tab
3. Expand either Review Cycle, Approval Cycle, or Endorsement Cycle
4. Click the Schedule Cycles switch to turn on Scheduling
5. Choose one of these "Schedule Types": 
   1. After a set amount of time: Repeat the cycle a regular number of units (Days, Weeks, or Years) after the previous cycle completes. You must start the first cycle manually
   2. On a specific date: The cycle occurs once on a specific date.
   3. On a calendar cycle: Start on a specific date, and repeat on a regular (recurring) pattern. Specify the whether the recurrence is monthly or yearly, what day of the month or year the cycle will start, and the range of recurrence.
6. Specify the "Schedule Settings". The options vary depending on the chosen Schedule Type.
7. Choose a "Cycle start" option: 
   1. Send a notice to the scheduler to manually start the cycle
   2. Automatically start the cycle: If you choose this option, you can also optionally choose whether to regularly remind users that are still pending on completing the cycle, and to send a notice to the scheduler (you) when the cycle is automatically started.
8. Check Notify scheduling user of upcoming cycle if you want a notice to be sent to the scheduler (you) a certain number of days before the scheduled cycle is to start, and the number of days in advance to be notified.
9. When done, click SAVE SCHEDULE SETTINGS

When the scheduled cycle starts, you have the option to reset the approved version to None while the cycle is in progress.