Review and Approval Workflow

This workflow walks you through the process to review and approve or reject sessions in Session Manager. To complete these tasks, you must be assigned the role Session Approval Officer.

Click the Session Manager button to display the My Work tab. Click on an assignment in the list to see its session card. The session card shows details about the session such as name, description, history, and any details if the session has been rejected.
For those logged in as Session Approval Officers, a list of sessions assigned to you and sessions to approve are seen under My Work.
If an assignment isn’t assigned to you, click the Take Ownership button to assign it to you. This can only be done with unassigned assignments.
Select a session from the My Work list, then click the Open Session button to start the session.
After sending a session, the next state depends on what workflow you are using. If you are using two-state workflow, the session is now in the Approval state (see Step 6). If you are using a three-state workflow, the session is now in the Review state. In the Review state the Session Approval Officer either approves or rejects the review session.
- Click the Approve button to approve a session. Once approving a Review session, the Session moves to the Approval state as outlined in Step 6.
- Click the Reject button to reject a session. Type the reason for rejecting the session in the text box within the Reason dialog. The Reject Reason is displayed on the session card under History. To find it, select the Rejected step on the History tab, and look for the Audit Note. Once a session is rejected, it is sent back to the original Editor.
  
  IMPORTANT: Any time a session is sent backward in the workflow (e.g. when a session is rejected), the original assignments and assignees are maintained. Sending the session forward again after going backward creates new unassigned assignments.
  
  For example, if the Assurance Officer, Bob Belcher, rejects a session edited by Phillip Frond, the session is sent back to Phillip. However, when Phillip is done with his edits and sends the session for approval, an unassigned approval assignment is created. This new approval assignment is not automatically assigned to Bob.
  
  The Session History, shown in the session card below, gives a history of the various assignments the session has been through in a three-state workflow.
  
  In a two-state workflow, there are no Review assignments. Only Edit and Approval states are visible in the History.
Once in the Approval state, the session can be posted or rejected and sent back to the previous state (Edit or Review, depending on workflow).
- Click the Post Version button to post the session’s version, then click Approve to indicate the session is complete. This step can only be performed by Session Approval Officers.
  
  IMPORTANT: When Geodatabase Manager is not configured on a tenant, it is recommended that users post a version before they approve the session. The Approve button is present even when a version hasn't been posted. If a session is in the Approval state, and the user approves the session prior to post, the session is no longer visible in Editor XI and can only be seen in Solution Center. As a precaution, and only when Geodatabase Manager is not configured on a tenant, when a user clicks the Approve button, a message appears reminding the user to post the version first. If Geodatabase Manager is configured, this confirmation message does not appear.
- Select Yes to approve the session.
- Select No, or the X in the upper right corner of the message, to leave the session unapproved.