What's the Difference Between an Edit and an Override?

Issue/Objective

To understand the difference between an Edit and an Administrative Override

Environment

PolicyStat

Procedure/Resolution

Click to view these steps in the Legacy PolicyStat interface.

A frequently asked question is when to edit a policy vs. when to use an Administrative Override.

The Override option is available above any document for which you have administrative permissions. You will be able to make changes to the body of the document as well as document properties. Common use cases for performing an Override would include fixing grammatical errors, adding attachments, or changing the Owner or Area of the documents. Since the changes made during the Override process are effective immediately, there is no option to save changes as a draft. You must make all desired changes before completing the override. Once you have completed the changes, add a short Summary of Changes comment and click Override.

• How do I Override a Policy?

Do not use Override to make significant changes in content. The override option is intended for small changes and is not a substitute for the actual review and approval process.

Below is a quick rundown of the differences between the options:

	Edit	Admin Override
Who can complete?	Owners Approvers Area Editors Area Managers Site Administrators	Site Administrators Area Administrators
What happens when changes are complete?	The Approval Workflow restarts and all approvers must mark their approval.	The policy remains active. The override is recorded in the document history.  If recurring acknowledgments were assigned users will not have to re-acknowledge the active version.
What can be modified?	Content Properties Owner Area Approval Workflow Next Review period Effective Date Watermark Applicability (only for multiple sites)	Content Properties (see at left) Adjust dates Next review Default period to next review Origination Approved Approval Simulation Applicability (only for multiple sites)
Can it save as a draft to be adjusted or worked on later?	Yes; clicking Edit creates a new draft version which can be saved for later modification as soon as the content is changed.	No. Overrides cannot be saved as a draft. All changes will take place as soon as the override is completed.
Do I need to enter a summary of the changes?	Yes	Yes

For more information about editing an existing policy through the approval workflow process, see this article:
    How do I Edit or make Revisions to an Existing Policy?

Changes made through and edit must go through the full approval workflow.


For more information about Administrative Overrides, see this article:
 How do I Override a Policy?

This option is intended for small changes and is not a substitute for the actual review and approval process.

Keep in mind that there is NO autosave function when doing an Override.  The save occurs when the override is completed regardless of the status the document is in, whether pending or active (draft documents cannot be overridden, only edited. For significant changes, a new version should be started and fully approved by going through an approval workflow.

If a Site Administrator or Area Administrator needs to make a minor change to a document on their site, they can use the Override feature to make this change without restarting the approval workflows on the document.  Changes made during an Override will be effective immediately on the Active document.