Who Sees Discussions?

A discussion can be created within any particular document or questionnaire. Which users are allowed to view and participate in a discussion depends on several factors, including the document's/questionnaire's current status, users' ability to access the document/questionnaire by virtue of their assigned roles and permissions, and the current Document Setup settings, which are controlled by your PolicyTech administrator.

All Discussions

For any particular document or questionnaire, those with the following roles have access to and complete control over all of that document's/questionnaire's discussions:

Any administrator assigned to the site containing the document/questionnaire
The document's/questionnaire's owner
A proxy author assigned to the document/questionnaire

This control includes the ability to do the following:

Create new discussions
Select any other user as a discussion participant

Note: Selecting a user does not change that user's permission to access the document/questionnaire in any way. If the added participant can already access the document/questionnaire by virtue of an assigned role or permission, that user will be able to open the document/questionnaire and see the new discussion. If the user cannot currently access the document/questionnaire, the user still receives an email notification with the discussion's original text and a link to the document/questionnaire, but clicking the link goes to an "access to resource denied" message.

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

Public Discussions for Documents and Questionnaires in the Draft, Collaboration, Review, and Approval Statuses

Discussions function differently in the statuses before a document is approved (Draft, Collaboration, Review, and Approval) than they do in the post-approval statuses (Pending and Published). What users can do with a document's or questionnaire's discussions in the earlier statuses also depends on whether or not they are assigned a task to write, review, or approve the document/questionnaire.

Note: For details on what assigned document owners and proxy authors can do with discussions, see All Discussions above.

A document's/questionnaire's assigned writers, reviewers, and approvers can do the following with that document's /questionnaire's discussions:

Create new discussions
Select any other accessible user as a discussion participant

View and participate in all public discussions created in the assigned document/questionnaire 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 that user created

Document owners, writers, reviewers, and approvers can also do the following with any unrestricted document/questionnaire that they are not assigned to while the document/questionnaire is in any accessible status:

Create new discussions that only an administrator and the assigned document owner and proxy authors can see.
View and participate in a discussion that that user created. In other words, unassigned document 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 documents/questionnaires (those assigned the All Users security level) while they are in the Approval status. This includes unrestricted documents/questionnaires the user is not assigned to approve. In an unrestricted document/questionnaire, an unassigned approver can create a new discussion that automatically includes only the assigned document owner, any assigned proxy author's, and any administrator with access to that document/questionnaire.

Public Discussions for Documents and Questionnaires in the Pending and Published Statuses

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

Note: For details on what assigned document owners and proxy authors can do with discussions within pending and published documents/questionnaires, see All Discussions above.

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

Document owners, proxy authors, writers, reviewers, and approvers who are NOT assigned to the document/questionnaire
All assignees, including those assigned to the document/questionnaire

Private Discussions

When a document or questionnaire discussion is marked private, only those explicitly selected as recipients, administrators, the document owner, and any assigned proxy authors 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 will be 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 document owner, any assigned proxy authors, and any administrators with administrative permission for the document's/questionnaire'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 document or questionnaire containing the discussion. If a user without the role or permission necessary to access a document/questionnaire 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 document/questionnaire link will result in a message saying that access to the requested document/questionnaire is denied.