Add Close Review" button

Yes I think we're on the same wavelength, for me some thought needs to be given by SmartBear on the close button, because ultimately we still want Collaborator to enforce the rules and avoid shortcuts - for example, a customer may not want to allow a moderator to close the review if there are still unmet conditions - approving roles that have not yet approved, etc.

Ahhhh.   Approve and Waiting are before my time with Collaborator.

And, as you well know, no matter how much we document and train users, when they use the tool they often 'wing it'.

Maybe the answer is also to have only one button to say you are done with a review - remove the whole Wait/Send To  thought process people have to engage in.    A Close button would also only show up for a role that has the authority to close a review...

Yes when the buttons were labelled "Approve" and "Waiting", here is how I explained it in my internal documentation - you either approve the review, or are waiting for something to happen before you can approve it.  In either case you want to click something to indicate to the software and other users that you are finished (still noting that optional reviewers cannot click approve).  I personally thought it was less confusing when the buttons were labeled Approve & Waiting.  It's particularly not clear when you click "Send to Inspection" and really behind the scenes you are approving the review.

You do bring up another point - unless there are bugs you know need to be fixed, why would anyone hit the 'wait' button.  If you review a product and find no defects, you are done, no?  (and if you are not done reviewing, you wouldn' thit any button...)    

So there technically is confusion between "wait" and "Send to Completed" for regular inspectors....

Yah, we didn't want the "automatically re-open" setting turned on - would cause havoc with out record keeping, never mind the auditors.   

I agree that it's often not clear but I think this whole thing needs to be given some thought.  Collaborator does not close the review until (among other things) the last approving role approves the review.  The moderator or any other privileged role does not have special powers to close the review, so probably there is usually only one person with an 'approving' role assigned to the review.  I personally think it is a good idea for the tool to enforce the configured process / rules, otherwise we have found with other tools that it is too easy to just add the record & close by the moderator without any real review effort, reducing the tool's effectiveness / value.

What I think would greatly help is for the tool to better explain what will happen when they click the Send to Completed/Inspection and Waiting buttons.

For example, if the user is an author/moderator, and they click "Send to Completed", the tool should explain things like:

• "You are the last approving role, and all defects have been fixed, so the review will now be closed"
• "You have approved the review, but the review will remain open until User XYZ approves"
• "You have approved the review, but the review will remain open until all defects have been resolved"

BTW there is a setting that allows reviews to automatically reopen if someone enters a new comment after the review has been closed, so that you don't have to go in & reopen the review yourself.  Of course that has its own drawbacks, but we have given guidance to our user community indicating that the author should not approve the review until they have given sufficient time for optional participants to review & provide comments, and that no longer seems to be a big issue for our company.

That also brings something to mind - optional / non-approving participants only ever get the "Waiting" button and can never approve.  So in the context of this request, it would be nice for say an author/moderator to see that optional participants have reviewed & have no comments - so maybe allow them to approve even though they didn't have to.

Maybe instead of having three buttons - send to approved/send to completed/waiting, there should be only ONE button at the bottom - "I'm Finished".  When the user clicks that, they are given options (with explanations), such as:

• I approve the review and do not want to re-approve when changes are made
• I want the author to make changes to the document before I approve the review
• etc.