Reviews

A review lets a teammate check changes to a dashboard before they go live. When a dashboard requires review, nobody can publish it directly: an editor requests a review, reviewers look at a frozen copy of the changes, and the dashboard is published only after a reviewer approves them. What goes live is exactly the copy the reviewers approved.

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Requiring review

Review is set up per dashboard, by a user with Full access to its workbook. It can be set up before the dashboard is first published, too.

1. Open the dashboard in the dashboard builder.
2. Click the arrow (▾) next to Publish and choose Review settings….
3. Turn on Require review before publishing.
4. Optionally, add default reviewers: search for users by name or email and pick them. Remove one with its ×.
5. Click Save.

Once review is required, the builder’s Publish button reads Request review. Turn the setting off in the same dialog to publish directly again. With default reviewers, every review request goes to them, and the person requesting a review can’t change the list. A requester who is one of the default reviewers is left out of their own request. Without default reviewers, the requester picks the reviewers each time.

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Requesting a review

You need Can edit or Full access on the workbook to request a review.

1. Make your changes in the dashboard builder.
2. Click Request review.
3. Pick reviewers, or check the default reviewers the dialog lists. You can’t pick yourself, and Send request stays disabled until the request has at least one reviewer.
4. Optionally, describe what changed under Message (optional).
5. Click Send request.

The request freezes the draft as revision 1 of the review: its widgets and layout, the dashboard’s title and description, and the current version of every chart’s report, including charts inside layout containers. Later edits to the draft or to a report don’t change what reviewers see. In the builder, a Review button replaces Draft and links to the review page. A dot on it shows the review’s status, which its tooltip names. While the draft matches the latest revision, the main button reads Publish again (see Publishing). With no review open, Request review is greyed out until the draft differs from the published version. On a dashboard that was never published, Request review is available right away. The dashboard stays unpublished while the review is open: publishing the approved review publishes its first version.

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Reviewers without access

A reviewer has to be able to view the dashboard. When you pick someone who can’t:

• With Full access, the person’s row is marked Will get view access. When you send the request, or save the review settings, they get Can view on the workbook, through the same sharing you’d use in the Share dialog. If you cancel, nothing is shared. A reviewer who already has access keeps the level they have.
• With Can edit, the person’s row is greyed out and marked No access, with the hint Ask someone with full access to share this dashboard first.

A default reviewer who has lost access shows as No access in the request, too. A requester with Full access can share with them; a requester with Can edit has to ask someone with full access first. The request never leaves such a reviewer out on its own.

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The review page

Reviewers and anyone who can edit the workbook can open a review. While a review is open, they see a Review button in the header of the published dashboard that opens it. Other people who can only view the dashboard don’t see the button and can’t open the review. A review of a dashboard that was never published opens from the builder’s Review button or from its notification. Anyone who can edit the dashboard also sees an Edit button in the review page’s header. It opens the dashboard in the dashboard builder. The review page shows the revision’s frozen widgets the way the published dashboard would show them, with the review’s status: The review panel is hidden when the page opens. Click Review in the page header to show or hide it. It opens on the first of its two tabs:

• Activity lists the request, every new revision, comment, approval, change request and cancellation, in the order they happened. It covers this review and every earlier review of the dashboard since its last publish, such as a review that was cancelled. Entries look like those in the dashboard’s Comments panel: the author’s avatar, name and time on one line, then the entry’s tags, then its message. A tag names the entry’s revision: Revision 2 for this review, Earlier review · revision 1 for an earlier one. An approval or change request also carries an Approved or Changes requested tag.
• Changes lists the widgets the revision adds, updates and removes, and whether the layout moved, compared with the version that is published now. A chart whose report was edited counts as updated. On a dashboard that was never published, every widget is listed as added.

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Commenting, approving and requesting changes

While a review is open, anyone who can open it can leave a comment in the review panel: type in the box that reads Leave a comment… and click its send button, or press Enter. Press Shift+Enter to add a new line. Reviewers also have Approve and Request changes under the box. Each posts the verdict with what you typed in the box, which is optional. The person who requested the review can’t approve or request changes on it. What you post appears at the end of the Activity tab: the panel switches to it, from Changes too, and scrolls to show your post. A reviewer can change their verdict: only each reviewer’s latest verdict counts. A reviewer who requested changes and later approves lifts their block. Review comments stay in reviews. They don’t appear in the dashboard’s Comments panel or its counts, and they work whether or not dashboard comments are turned on.

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Updating a review

When you edit the draft after requesting a review, the builder shows Draft and Request review again. Request review again to add the current draft to the same review as the next revision. It goes to the review’s reviewers, and the Activity tab shows Updated to revision 2. A dashboard has at most one open review. If nothing changed since the latest revision, Cube refuses a new request.

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Publishing

When the review is Approved, anyone who can edit the workbook can click Publish on the review page. While the draft matches the latest revision, the builder’s Publish button does the same. Publish stays greyed out until the review is approved. Publishing makes the approved revision the live version, exactly as reviewers saw it: the same widgets, layout and chart reports. Edits you made to the draft after the request stay in the draft. The dashboard keeps the workbook’s current title and description, so renaming the workbook during a review is not undone. The review becomes Published.

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Cancelling a review

The person who requested a review, or anyone with Full access to the workbook, can cancel it: choose Cancel review from the arrow (▾) next to the builder’s main button, or click Cancel review on the review page.

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Notifications

Everyone taking part in a review gets a notification when something happens on it: the requester, the reviewers and anyone who commented. The person who acted doesn’t get one. Notifications are sent when:

• a review or a new revision is requested;
• someone comments;
• a reviewer approves;
• a reviewer requests changes;
• the review is published.

Each one arrives by email and in the in-app inbox, and links to the review page. The notification for a published review links to the published dashboard. People who can no longer view the dashboard don’t get notifications.

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Version history

The builder’s revision history lists the revisions of each review next to the published versions, each with an Open review button that opens its review page. A review’s latest revision shows the review’s status: In review, Published or Cancelled. Every earlier revision shows Superseded. Select a revision to preview the dashboard as that revision froze it, the same way you preview a published version. A revision can’t be restored.

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Limitations

Reviews are available in the Cube app only, not on embedded dashboards.