Document approval and publish process

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Document approval and publish process

    This process governs the review, approval, and publishing of documents within the ServiceNow platform. It ensures that documents undergo proper scrutiny by designated reviewers and approvers before they are published. The workflow supports multiple reviewers and approvers, with clearly defined rules for how document status changes based on their actions.

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    Users with platformdocumentmanagementadmin or admin roles can create approval and review rules, add reviewers and approvers, initiate workflows, and publish approved document versions. All approvers and reviewers have read access to the documents they handle.

    Document Review

    • Reviewers can approve or reject a document. If rejected, the author and owner are notified, and the review is canceled, prompting discussions to revise the document.
    • If approved, the document moves to the approval stage with notifications sent accordingly.
    • When multiple reviewers exist, the first reviewer to act determines the outcome. A rejection stops the review process; an approval advances the document to approval, while other reviewers’ statuses update to “No Longer Required.”

    Document Approval

    • Approval follows review unless no approvers are assigned, in which case approval is skipped.
    • Approvals can be sequential with multiple approvers in each sequence. For example, Sequence 1 may include approvers A and B, followed by subsequent sequences.
    • The first approver in a sequence to act dictates the result—approval advances the process to the next sequence or final stage, while rejection cancels the process.
    • Upon final approval, the document state changes to “Ready for Publishing,” and notifications are sent to the author and owner.

    Publishing

    • Only after final approval can a document be published.
    • Publishing a new revision retires the previously published revision and cancels any workflows related to older versions.

    Configuration and Practical Use

    • Document approval revision rules use condition builders to automatically apply approval and review rules to documents that meet specified criteria. Users can add reviewers and approvers to these rules to automate the process.
    • Approvers and reviewers added directly from a document record are not included in these automated rules.
    • Users who create documents can add approvers/reviewers, initiate workflows, monitor activity streams, and publish documents once approved.
    • Approvals and rejections can also be actioned directly via email, streamlining the process.

    Key Outcomes

    • Ensures rigorous control over document quality through structured review and approval stages.
    • Provides flexibility with multiple reviewers and approvers, including sequential approval workflows.
    • Automates notifications and status updates to keep stakeholders informed.
    • Guarantees that only approved content is published, maintaining document integrity.
    • Supports efficient document lifecycle management by retiring outdated revisions and canceling obsolete workflows upon publishing new versions.

    A reviewer approves or rejects the document. A document can have multiple reviewers. During the approval process, the approver approves or rejects the document. A document goes through the approval process after the review process. A document is published after the review and approval process.

    A document can have a reviewer or multiple reviewers and no approvers and vice versa. You must have the platform_document_management_admin or admin role to create approval and review rules.

    Users who can create documents have the option to do the following:
    • Add approvers and reviewers to a document​.
    • Initiate the approval and review workflow​ for a document version.
    • Publish the approved version.
    • See the activity stream of the approval and review workflow.

    All approvers and reviewers have read access to the documents that they’re approving.

    Document approval revision rule

    The document approval and revision rule is created based on the conditions defined in the condition builder to determine which documents use the approval rule. After the approval rule is saved, reviewers and approvers are added if the conditions in the Condition field are met.
    Note:
    Document reviewer and approver directly added from the document record aren’t added to the Document approval and revision rule.

    Document review

    If the reviewer rejects the document, the author and owner are notified and the review is canceled. The author, owner, and reviewer should discuss what changes must be made to the document. If the reviewer approves the document, the author and owner are notified that the review was successful, and the document can move to the approval stage. If multiple reviewers are assigned to a document, the first reviewer to act dictates what happens to the document. For example, there are two reviewers, A and B.

    If reviewer A acts first and rejects the document, the review process stops and the revision state is set to Canceled. Reviewer B receives a notification email stating that the review was rejected and the status is changed to No Longer Required. If reviewer A acts first and approves the document, the review process stops and the document can move to the approval stage. Reviewer B's status is changed to No Longer Required.

    Document approval

    After the document has been reviewed, submit the document for approval. If the document doesn’t have an approver, the approval process is omitted.

    If the final approver approves the document, the author and the owner are notified. After the final approval is successful, the document stage changes to Ready for Publishing in the Document versions list.

    If there are multiple approvers, the approval process works in sequence, and multiple approvers can be assigned to a single sequence. For example:
    • Sequence 1: Approvers A and B
    • Sequence 2: Approvers C and D
    • Sequence 3: Approver E

    The sequences take place in ascending chronological order, approvers A and B receive the approval request first (approvers C, D, and E aren’t part of the process yet). Similar to the review process, the first approver to act within a sequence dictates what happens to the document. If approver A acts first and rejects the document, the approval process stops and the state is set to Canceled. Approver B's status is changed to No Longer Required. If approver A acts first and approves the document, the process stops and approver B's status is changed to No Longer Required. The document then moves to approval sequence 2. After at least one approver in each sequence approves the document, the author and the owner are notified that the document has been approved.

    Publish a document

    After a document has been created and edited, the revision can be submitted for draft review and final approval. After final approval, the document can be published.

    If the approval and publishing process is repeated, the published revision is retired when the new revision is published. Any workflows running against previous revisions are canceled when the document is published.