Assigning Pending and Optional Roles

Each role authorized on a lifecycle transition can be defined as pending or non-pending. When an object is actioned to a state in which users have a pending role to action it further, the users will automatically receive the object in their inbox and receive email notification. Users with a non-pending role will not receive the object in their inboxes, nor will they be notified via email, but they will still have full authority to work on the object and action it to the next state.

A role on a lifecycle transition can also be defined as optional. This means that actioning an object to the transition's from state does not require there to be a user holding that role. If this option is not set, the actioning is disallowed if there are no users holding that role.

For example, if the lifecycle for the DOC item type has the following transitions defined in the Administration Console:

From | To | Role | Optional | Pending | User
Draft | Under Review | TESTER QA DEVELOPER | Y N N | Y Y Y | Ted Jane Bill
Under Review | Approved | TEAM LEADER QA | N Y | Y N | Sam Jane

1. Bill, who holds the Developer role, updates an item of type DOC.

2. When he has completed his changes, the new revision is at the initial state of Draft.

3. He then actions it to the Under Review state.

nSam, the Team Leader, gets an email notification and the item appears in his inbox because the Pending option is set.

nJane, who has the QA role does not receive an email, or see the item in her inbox. She can, however, action the item to the Approved state just as Sam can do.

In the second example below, the lifecycle for the DOC item type has the following transitions defined:

From | To | Role | Optional | Pending | User
Draft | Under Review | TESTER QA DEVELOPER | Y N N | Y Y Y | None Jane Bill
Under Review | Approved | TEAM LEADER QA | N N | Y N | Sam None

1. Bill updates an item of type DOC to create a new revision (Draft state). Although there is no-one with the TESTER role, he is able to do this because the role is optional.

2. After updating the file, he then attempts to action it to the Under Review state. Because there is no user holding the QA role, Bill receives a message saying that there is no user holding that role, and is not allowed to complete the action.

Related Topics

Managing Roles

Roles and Design Parts

Roles on Projects and Streams

Assigning Roles to Baselines

Assigning Roles to Requests

Roles on Design Part Variants

Roles and Lifecycles

Delegating Roles

Inboxes and Roles

Choosing Role Capabilities

Special Roles