About the Discussions Page of the Overview

The Discussions page of the Overview shows collaboration about a content item. The discussion board provides an area in each content item where all those who work on it or have permission to access it can make comments and have a discussion without rejecting the content item or sending it back to Draft. This can streamline the publishing process by reducing the number of review cycles.

You can create a discussion within any content item (document, assessment, or campaign). Which users are allowed to view and participate in a discussion depends on several factors, including the content item's status, users' ability to access the content item by virtue of their assigned roles and permissions, and the current Content Setup settings.

Note: Selecting a user as a discussion participant does not change that user's permission to access the content item.

For any content item, any administrator assigned to the site containing the item, the content item's owner, or a proxy author assigned to the content item have access to and control of the discussions for the content item.

This control includes the ability to do the following:

  • Create new discussions.
  • Select any other user as a discussion participant.
  • View and participate in (reply to) all discussions, including those marked private, in any workflow status.
  • Change a discussion's security level from private to public and from public to private.
  • Delete any discussion.

Discussions function differently in the statuses before a content item is approved (Draft, Collaboration, Review, and Approval) than they do in the post-approval statuses (Pending and Published/Started). What users can do with a content item's discussions in the earlier statuses also depends on whether they are assigned a task to write, review, or approve the content item.

An assigned writer, reviewer, and approver has the ability to do the following with a content item's public discussion:

  • Create new discussions.
  • Select any other accessible user as a discussion participant.
  • View and participate in all public discussions created in the assigned content item while it is in any accessible workflow status.
  • Change a discussion's security level from private to public and from public to private.
  • Delete a discussion that the user initially created.

Owners, writers, reviewers, and approvers can also do the following with any unrestricted content item while the item is in any accessible status:

  • Create new discussions that only an administrator and the assigned owner and proxy authors can see.
  • View and participate in a discussion that the user initially created. In other words, unassigned owners, writers, reviewers, and approvers cannot view any discussions created by anyone else and cannot remove default participants or select additional participants.

For example, a user assigned the approver role can see all unrestricted content items (those assigned the All Users security level) while they are in the Approval status. In an accessible, unrestricted content item, an unassigned approver can create a new discussion that automatically includes only the assigned owner, any assigned proxy authors, and any administrators with access to that content item.

After a content item is approved, writers, reviewers, and approvers assigned to that content item can see all public discussions, including those previously created in the Draft, Collaboration, Review, and Approval statuses.

The following users can see a content item's discussions created in the Pending and Published statuses but cannot see those previously created in the Draft, Collaboration, Review, and Approval statuses, unless they were added as a participant in one or more of those discussions:

  • Owners, proxy authors, writers, reviewers, and approvers who are NOT assigned to the content item
  • All users with the Assignee role, including those designated as assignees for the content item

When a content item discussion is marked private, only those explicitly selected as recipients, administrators, assigned proxy authors, and the owner can view the discussion.

Note: If selected recipients are removed from the recipient list for a private discussion, they will no longer be able to see that discussion, even if they previously contributed to it.

Discussion Notifications

If an administrator has set up PolicyTech to send out email notifications using your organization's email system, emails are sent to selected or default participants each time a discussion is created or replied to.

Note: When a user doesn't have the option to select participants, the default recipients who receive email notifications are the owner, any assigned proxy authors, and any administrators with administrative permission for the content item's site.

It is important to understand that email notification for a discussion has nothing to do with whether the recipient has access to the content item containing the discussion. If a user without the role or permission necessary to access a content item is included as a discussion recipient and receives an email notification, that user can open the email and see the text from the discussion but clicking the link will result in a "access to resource denied" message.