Blissbook's review and approval workflows are a great way to create a documented history of policy content oversight, which can be integral to passing certain audits or, in general, to maintaining the health and integrity of your policies.
Starting a Review
A Review can be started for a policy at any time from two places:
If a policy card is open, click either the Review button in the top right:
...or, if the Review panel is open, click the "Start a Review..." button within:
In the policy library index, check the policy or policies you want to start a Review on, go to the bulk ••• menu, then choose "Start a Review...".
In the modal that opens, you can create a new review from scratch or you can clone a previous review you've done. Hover over the previous reviews to see the details on any one of them, and click the "Clone..." button if you want to use one.
On the next step, you'll choose Reviewers, set a due date, write instructions for Reviewers, and decide what determines whether or not a policy is "Approved".
Note: Access levels are inherited from someone's role on your team. If someone is a Team Owner, you cannot change them to a Commenter role in this step. You can separately turn off Teammate access to the policy and then re-add people with a specific (reduced) role if this is a requirement from within the Share settings, either before or after you start your review. See the help article on policy sharing.
Submitting Feedback
When reviewers open Blissbook, they'll see an indicator that they have something to review next to the policy name:
When they open the policy, they'll see a banner across the top instructing them to submit their feedback:
The side panel will also be open to the Review tab, and in it, they'll see a feedback request with instructions (and below this, other details about the Review):
The reviewer must check the box, presumably after they've read/reviewed the content and have left comments or suggestions, etc. Users see one of 3 messages depending on their access level:
Editor+: I reviewed the content and commented, suggested edits, or made edits where appropriate.
Commenter: I reviewed the content and commented or suggested edits where appropriate.
Viewer: I reviewed the content and am ready to submit my feedback.
Once done, they can submit their final feedback by clicking the Submit Feedback... button:
If a user has comment-only access, they'll be in Suggesting mode when they open the policy. If they have view-only access, they can't do anything to the policy and will need to submit all feedback via the freeform input box.
Reviewers can "re-review" a policy in an active Review at any time by clicking the Modify Feedback button next to their existing feedback:
This will re-pop the Submit Feedback form where they can enter new feedback. It does not actually modify or overwrite previous feedback; it enters additional feedback into the activity log and will change the feedback status (Comment, Approve, Request Changes) from this person accordingly.
In-Review Policy Phases
Policies currently in a Review can have the following Phases:
In Review: A Review is underway and either (A) nobody has reviewed; or (B) at least one person has reviewed but (i) the Review requires all reviewers to approve and not everyone has; and (ii) nobody has responded with "Request Changes".
Needs Revision: A Review is underway and 1 or more reviewers responded with "Request Changes".
Approved: A Review is underway and either (A) the Review requires all reviewers to approve and everyone has; or (B) the Review requires at least 1 reviewer to approve and someone has done so.
No Decision: Either (A) a Review has reached its due date, the approval criteria wasn't met, and nobody responded with "Request Changes"; or (B) all reviewers responded and all chose to "Comment" or, if the Review requires all reviewers to approve, the reviewers chose some combination of "Comment" and "Approve".
Now what?
When a Review has received full feedback, the due date has passed, or it has received certain feedback that kicks it into a "Needs Revision" or "Approved" phase, you have options for what to do next (at the bottom of the review panel):
Team Owners, Full Access admins, and Publishers on a policy can actually publish at any time. Team Owners and Full Access admins can also start a new review at any time.
Start another Review
Did you make changes after the previous review and now you need a new official Review?
Or is the policy ready to move on to the next level of reviewers?
Start a new review! Starting a new Review will end the previous review and set the phase back to "In Review".
Release / Publish
If changes are required, make your changes. Once everything looks good, release or publish the policy, or do nothing and wait to release/publish a bunch of policies in bulk later on.
When you release or publish a policy, it will end the previous Review and set the phase back to "Clean".
Manually End a Review
If a Review has received all the requested feedback, you're not sure what to do next, and you want to reset the phase, you can manually end a Review:
This will set it back to a "Clean" phase (if no changes were made) or a "Drafting" phase (if there are changes waiting to be released or published.
It will also prevent previous reviewers from coming back to re-review the policy, which they can do if the Review has not ended.
You can also end a Review at any time if you've got all the feedback you need. When a Review has ended, reviewers can no longer modify or add new feedback.
Policy Library Views
If you are part of an ongoing Review as a requester or as a reviewer, you'll see some default Views in your policy library:
Awaiting my review (X): These are the policies where your review has been requested and you have not yet submitted feedback.
I asked others to review (X): These are the policies that you asked someone else to review.
In review: These are all the policies with any review status: In Review, Needs Revision, Approved, or No Decision.