Conduct a Design Review
Aligned Elements offers a structured approach to conduct reviews of document objects. A Review document object works like any other document object in Aligned Elements and operates via a combination of attributes and traces.
A document object is considered as reviewed if the revision of the document object is part of an open or a closed review.
Three important sets of document objects are involved in a Review:
First, there is the Review itself (which is a document object) acting as the main container of the review process.
The second set is the Document Objects Under Review; i.e., the document objects that we are reviewing which essentially are defined by one or more snapshots. The review uses snapshots in order to define the start state of the document objects to be reviewed.
The third set contains the Issues generated by the review process. These issues are meant to sum up the tasks that have been completed before the Review is successfully closed.
How to create a Review
Create a new Review from the Chapter View or the List View.
From a convenience perspective, it is easier to work with Reviews in full view mode.
In the Document Object Form, add a Review description (usually stating the reason and success criteria for the reviews).
Set a Due Date to define the Review is planned to be completed.
Assign the Review participants as well as their roles and follow their review progress.
Define the Document Objects Under Review by adding one or more Snapshots.
Once the Document Objects under Review have been entered into a Review, trying to edit a Document Object will trigger a Notification telling the user to beware of making changes to the item since it is currently under review.
Sending Emails to Review Participants
Use the Email User(s) in the Actions dropdown to notify users about their participation in the Review. You can choose to:
Send an email to all users (e.g., at the start)
Send an email to users that have not yet completed their work (e.g., a reminder email)
Note! Make sure the participating users have been assigned email addresses in the user management and that SMTP settings have been set up in the web.config file for the email functionality to work.
At this point, the Review is ready to be started.
Enter and process Review Feedback
Each Reviewer can now enter their Review Feedback to the Document Objects Under Review by selecting the Perform Review action in the Actions dropdown. This will display the Perform Review view.
This view is also accessible from the Your Assigned Items => Assigned Reviews view, found in the sidebar, which displays a list of all Reviews in which you are expected to enter your Review Feedback.
Click on the Add Review Feedback button to display the Perform Review view.
The Review Feedback view
At the top, information about the Review itself as well as your review progress is displayed.
The Review grid displays all Document Objects under Review including their current inconsistencies.
Note! To hide the inconsistency column and allow more space for the Objects under Review, click on the eye-slash icon in the Inconsistency column header. To display the column, click it again.
State of the Document Object under Review
In the left-most ID column, hover on the ID to get a popup displaying the item's full content.
The icons under the ID have the following significance:
The yellow exclamation mark indicates that the Document Object is reviewed for the first time in this review.
The green checkmark indicates that the Document Object has not been changed since the last successful review of the object.
The red looking glass indicates that the Document Object has been changed since the last successful review of the object. Click on the icon to display a Gap Form.
Asses the Document Object under Review
Use the controls in the right-most column to enter your feedback for each Document Object under Review.
Accept - Click on the green checkmark to signalize that you accept the current state of the object.
Reject - Click on the red cross to signalize that you do not accept the current state of the object. When doing so, you are prompted to enter a Comment explaining why you reject the current state of the item.
You can enter a new Comment or Upvote an existing Comment that addresses your concern. The Comments are associated with and collected in the Document Objects Comment section. The Comments can also be inspected and edited by clicking on the Round Speech Bubble icon. Use @mentions to automatically send emails to mentioned users in the comments.
If it is agreed that the reasons for rejecting an item are valid, the Comment can be promoted to an Issue.
The issue is associated with both the Document Object under review and the Review itself and is to be regarded as a Review Finding to be formally addressed during the Review. Existing Issues can also be entered, added, and removed from the item by using the Square Speech Bubble.
Thus, the process supports a two stage feedback approach where review feedback is initially entered in an informal way, using Comments, which, after appropriate discussions, can be elevated to formal Review Findings by prompting comments to issues.
Working with Review Feedback
The progress bar on the top of the view indicates how many objects you have accepted, rejected, and not addressed.
If you can't enter your review feedback in a single session, you can easily pick up where you left off by clicking the Find Next button on the top of the view which will highlight the first found item you have not yet addressed.
If you want to accept all items with a single action, you can click the Accept All button on the top of the view.
Once a participant has entered feedback to all items under Review, he/she clicks I performed the Review to indicate that he/she has completed the feedback stage of the Review.
This action writes the current date in the Review Date column of the Assigned User table of the Review.
The Action menu also allows you to:
Comment on the Review as a whole
Adding new or existing Issues to the Review that are not associated with any Document Object
Processing the Review Feedback
Once all participants have completed their feedback entries, the Review team can now return to the Review itself and address the Issues entered as feedback by the review participants.
Click on the Display Review Feedback Overview item in the Action menu to access the aggregated feedback from all users.
This Progress bar displays the aggregated number of Accept and Reject decisions.
The right column indicates the number of users that have accepted, rejected or not yet given feedback to the item. Hover with the mouse over a button to see the usernames for each category.
The last Comment on the item from each user is listed in the comment list. It is possible to promote Comments to Issues at this stage as well.
Created Issues are listed for each item in the issue list.
Use the Generate Excel Report item in the Action menu to export the aggregation to Excel.
Additional findings can be added by adding Issues to the Review and optionally associate these with the Document Objects under Review using the dropdown in the Issue column.
Address Review Findings
It is up to the Review Team to discuss the Review Findings (Issues) and agree on whether any corresponding changes to the Document Objects, based on the Issues listed in the Review, shall be made.
Alternatively, an Issue can be deferred to a later stage or evicted from the review if not valid.
The Document Objects under Review are updated accordingly by the Review Team. The Issues shall be closed once they have been addressed and implemented.
Finalizing the Review
Once all findings have been dealt with, the user closes the Review by setting the Review Status to Closed. As a consequence of this action, a snapshot is automatically set on all Document Objects associated with the Review. This snapshot can later be compared with the snapshots used in the beginning to define the Document Objects under Review, which will then highlight the changes made to the Document Objects under Review during the duration of the Review.
"Add to Review" from other Views
To simplify the setup of a Review, the Add to Review function is available in several views,
Several views permit you to select a number of Items and select Add To Review using the Action dropdown.
As a next step, you are presented with the option of adding the items to an existing Review or to create a new Review for the selected items.
After selecting a Review, you are prompted to add a Snapshot name. When completed, a snapshot has been created for your objects and that snapshot has been added to the selected Review.
As a final step, the Review is now opened, and you can continue working with it.
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