Document approval and publish process
Summarize
Summary of Document approval and publish process
This process outlines how documents are reviewed, approved, and published within ServiceNow. It involves multiple reviewers and approvers who evaluate document versions sequentially to ensure quality and compliance before publication. The process is governed by roles and configurable approval rules.
Show less
Key Features
- Roles and Permissions: Users with
platformdocumentmanagementadminoradminroles can create approval and review rules. Document creators can add reviewers and approvers, initiate workflows, publish approved versions, and track activity streams. - Approval and Review Rules: Rules are created using conditions to determine which documents require review and approval. Reviewers and approvers are assigned based on these rules, not directly from the document record.
- Review Process: Reviewers can approve or reject documents. If rejected, the author and owner are notified, and the review is canceled for revisions. The first reviewer’s action determines the outcome in multi-reviewer scenarios, stopping the process if rejected or passing it to approval if approved.
- Approval Process: After review, documents proceed to approval unless no approvers are assigned. Approvers act in defined sequences; the first approver’s decision in each sequence controls progression. Approval notifications are sent to authors and owners, and the document moves to “Ready for Publishing” upon final approval.
- Publishing: Only approved document versions can be published. Publishing a new revision retires previous published versions and cancels any workflows tied to older revisions.
- Email Actions: Approvers and reviewers can approve or reject document versions directly via email, streamlining the workflow.
Practical Implications for ServiceNow Customers
- Implementing this process ensures controlled and auditable document lifecycle management, enhancing governance and compliance.
- Configurable approval and review rules allow tailoring workflows to organizational needs, automating assignment of reviewers and approvers based on document attributes.
- Sequential approval with multiple approvers supports complex organizational review structures, ensuring thorough scrutiny before publication.
- Email-based approvals speed up the process, reducing delays caused by switching platforms.
- Publishing only approved versions maintains content integrity, while retiring old versions prevents confusion and redundancy.
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.
- 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
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.
- 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.