Reviewing models and designs

A review is a process to help gather feedback from team members on a set of resources.

About this task

A review follows a lifecycle and passes through several states as participants complete their work by the assigned due date. Participants can check the status of a review, provide comments, and review on resources. During the review lifecycle, the review author can update resources, add participants and change participant roles as needed.

There are two types of participant roles:
  • Subscribers can track the status of a review, but do not have review assignments. When the author changes the state of the review, subscribers are notified by email.
  • Reviewers are assigned to review a resource or collection of resources by an assigned due date. Reviewers must complete their assignment and review all resources before the review is considered finished. Reviewers also receive email notification on the status of a review. After the review starts, the review author can finalize it; however, to be finalized, a review must be in the In Progress or Reviewed states.

After all participants have reviewed the resources, the review is automatically moved to the Reviewed state. The author can then finalize the review, and can provide a summary of the review results. This review summary is automatically sent by email to all the review participants: both Reviewers and Subscribers.

There are three types of reviews: formal, informal, and change set.

The state of the review changes throughout its lifecycle.

Review state Description
Draft The author creates the review by adding participants and resources, and assigning roles and due dates. Participants are not notified when the review is in the draft state.
In Progress The author clicks Start Review. Participants join the review and begin their work assignments. All reviews must have at least one reviewer and one resource, and participants are notified by email that a review has started.
Paused If a review author needs to modify a review, the author clicks Pause Review to update the list of participants, change participant roles, and add or modify resources. While the review is paused, the review author can also update the list of participants, change participant roles, add or modify resources, and reset the status of a resource, which forces reviewers to perform a new review of the resource. Participants cannot mark resources as reviewed until the review author continues the review.
Reviewed When all the reviewers have reviewed on their assigned resources, the review is moved to the Reviewed state. Reviewers can still update their results and add additional comments, but the review can no longer be modified.
Finalized The author clicks Finalize Review. While finalizing a review, the review author can provide a summary of the review outcome; this summary is sent to participants and is saved with the review. When a review is finalized, the review is saved and cannot be modified by the author; however, reviewers can still comment and add links.

Feedback