A discussion can be created within any particular document. Which users are allowed to view and participate in a discussion depends on several factors, including the document's current status and users' ability to access the document by virtue of their assigned roles and permissions.
For any particular document, those with the following roles have access to and complete control over all of that document's discussions:
This control includes the ability to do the following:
Note: Selecting a user does not change that user's permission to access the document in any way. If the added participant can already access the document by virtue of an assigned role or permission, that user will be able to open the document and see the new discussion. If the user cannot currently access the document, the user still receives an email notification with the discussion's original text and a link to the document, but clicking the link goes to an "access to resource denied" message.
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 discussions in the earlier statuses also depends on whether or not they are assigned a task to write, review, or approve the document.
Note: For details on what assigned document owners and proxy authors can do with discussions, see All Discussions above.
A document's assigned writers, reviewers, and approvers can do the following with that document's discussions:
Note: Selecting a user does not change that user's permission to access the document in any way. If the added participant can already access the document by virtue of an assigned role or permission, that user will be able to open the document and see the new discussion. If the user cannot currently access the document, the user still receives an email notification with the discussion's original text and a link to the document, but clicking the link goes to an "access to resource denied" message.
Document owners, writers, reviewers, and approvers can also do the following with any unrestricted document they are not assigned to while the document is in any accessible status:
For example, a user assigned the reviewer role can see all unrestricted documents (those assigned the All Users security level) while they are in the review status. This includes unrestricted documents the user is not assigned to review. In an unrestricted document, an unassigned reviewer can create a new discussion that automatically includes only the assigned document owner, any assigned proxy author's, and any document control administrator with access to that document.
After a document is approved, writers, reviewers, and approvers assigned to that document 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 approved documents, see All Discussions above.
The following users can see a document's discussions created in the pending and draft statuses but cannot see those created in the collaboration, review, and approval statuses, unless they were added as a participant in one or more of those discussions:
When a document discussion is marked private, only those explicitly selected as recipients, a document control administrator, 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.
If a document control 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 document control administrators with administrative permission for the document'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 containing the discussion. If a user without the role or permission necessary to access a document 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 link will result in a message saying that access to the requested document is denied.