Can I Invite Others to Collaborate on a Policy?

Objective

Invite additional users to collaborate on a policy

Environment

PolicyStat

Procedure

During a policy review, Approvers, Area Managers, Owners, and even Site Administrators can add comments and discuss pending policies before they complete the Approval Workflow and become active.

Users without these permissions (e.g. - Subject Matter Experts) may need to provide input, but without being added to the workflow, which can impact a large number of policies. These users can easily review and discuss the policy using PolicyStat's Collaboration Commenting feature.

Invited collaborators can only view a policy. They will not be able to modify the content or properties but can view existing comments, add new comments, and view the draft or pending version content. If a collaborator needs to edit the policy content they can be given Edit permissions for the Area the document is in by a local Site Administrator.

Inviting Collaborators

1. Log into PolicyStat.
2. Locate and open the pending policy requiring attention.
3. Navigate to the Comments section below the policy content.
   
4. Invite new external commenters to join a pending policy by using an @-mention. Simply type the @ symbol, then start typing their name. When the name appears press the Tab key to select their name and continue typing.
5. Click the Comment button.
   • Anyone involved with the policy (including the newly invited collaborators) who have not already approved the policy will receive notification of the comments.
   • Comments become part of the policy history but can be edited or removed for up to 10 minutes after they are added.. Use the pencil icon beside your comment to edit or the trashcan icon to remove the comment.

Invited collaborators are able to view and comment on a pending (or draft) version of a policy until it completes the approval process and becomes active. If the active policy moves back into a draft or pending format, previously invited collaborators would need to be re-invited (see note below for more details).

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Commenting on a Draft Policy

If a policy is still in the draft phase, users with access to view and edit the draft (Owner, Approvers, Area Editors, Area Managers, Site Admins) can use the commenting feature to discuss the draft version. Collaborators will not, by default, be able to see these comments.

However, collaborators can be invited to view the draft version of a policy before it pends for approval. They will not be able to modify the content or properties but can view existing comments, add new comments, and view the draft content.

Comments made on a draft version will transfer to the pending version once a user starts the approval workflow.

 

Note: For collaborators that have been @mentioned on a pending policy that also need to be involved with the editing of the draft, they must be separately @mentioned on the draft in order to receive notification of comments on the draft. 
This is meant to reduce the policy editor/SMEs notifications going out to everyone on the approval workflow that normally don't need to be involved with the editing.