Review Cockpit: Create and Execute a Review

Overview

A review brings together a number of issues and a group of users that will examine them individually to determine whether to accept or reject them. This page explains how Review Cockpit of easeRequirements Ultimate for Jira supports you to create a review, assign moderators and reviewers, and execute the review to conclusion.

User Interface

The user interface of the Review Cockpit consists of the following elements:

  • An extra section for Review issues named “Review” appears in the issue Detail View of easeRequirements for Jira. The reviewers' subtasks and their status are displayed in this section, as well as buttons to manage the review.

  • The Review Details View displays the details of a review and a number of quick filters. It contains two panes:

    • The left pane displays the review issue itself with the reviewers' subtasks, followed by the issues in the scope of the review. The review status of each issue in the scope is provided in terms of the aggregate number of comments, acceptances and rejections, as determined by the reviewers. The cumulative numbers are also provided for the review itself and the reviewer subtasks.

    • The right pane displays the issue selected in the left pane. If the issue form part of the scope of the review, additional buttons are provided in the upper right corner, allowing the reviewer to set the outcome of the review and page through the reviewers' subtasks.

Operations

Create a review

Action

Explanation

Action

Explanation

  • Go to the folder that contains the issues to be reviewed in a project tree.

The recommended place to create a review is in a folder that contains the issues to be reviewed, since when a review is created, its sibling issues and their child issues are automatically added to the scope of the review.

Use the filter option to reduce the initial scope for the review creation.

Issues can still be added or removed from the scope manually after the review is created.

  • Select Create review from the context menu of the folder.

This is the only way to create a review. Simply creating a review issue in Jira itself does not result in an issue that the application recognizes as a review, and the special features of the Review Cockpit will not be available.

The “Create review“ option will only appear if the project is associated to a review scheme.

  • Fill out the standard Jira create issue dialog.

  • Select Create.

The review moderators and reviewers should be selected here if the fields are available in the screen (but they can still be added or removed later if necessary).

The new issue contains a section named “Review”, containing a review subtask for each of the specified reviewers. Assuming you have included yourself as a moderator, you will see two buttons: Moderator View and Edit Scope.

  • Add yourself to the Moderator field.

To manage the review, you need to be a member of the Moderator field. If you did not include yourself in the field when you created the issue, you should do so now.

  • Add reviewers to the Reviewers field.

If additional reviewers are needed, you can add them now. A review subtask is automatically created for every user added to the Reviewers field.

Moderate the review

Action

Explanation

Action

Explanation

  • Open the review issue.

  • Set the issue’s status to in progress.

The status indicates that the review is underway.

  • Use the Review section of the issue to view the overall status of the review.

The Review section shows each reviewer’s subtask including the following information:

  • Status: The Jira status of the reviewer subtask.

  • Pending: The number of issues that have not yet been accepted or rejected by that reviewer.

  • Accepted: The number of issues that have been identified as having no problems needing attention by that reviewer.

  • Rejected: The number of issues that have been identified as having problems needing attention by that reviewer.

  • Commented: The number of comments made by that reviewer.

  • Select Edit Scope.

  • Add or remove issues to specify the scope of the review.

  • Select Update.

This action is only needed if the default scope of the review needs to be modified. Select new issues to be added to the review by its issue key or remove issues not part of the process.

  • Select Moderator View to view the details of the review.

This action opens the Review Details view. Monitor the review by checking the status from each of the reviewers' subtasks and the accumulated results from all reviewers.

  • Set the review issue’s status to completed when the review is completed.

The status indicates that the issues in the scope of the review have been reviewed.

Execute the review

Action

Explanation

Action

Explanation

  • Open your personal review subtask.

  • Set the status to in progress.

The status indicates to the moderator that you are working on the review.

  • Open the review issue.

  • Go to the Review section of the issue.

  • Select Start next to your review subtask.

This action opens the Review Details view for your individual review.

  • In the Review Details view, work through the issues in the scope of the review, adding comments and making decisions to accept or reject each one.

On Review Details issue header, there are buttons used to comment and make your decision about the issue:

  • Comment: Add a comment to the issue under review.

  • Accept: Indicate that there are no problems with the issue that need attention.

  • Reject: Indicate that there are problems with the issue that need attention.

Additionally, depending on your project permissions, you will see Edit and Workflow status buttons. Lastly, there are icons that enable you to navigate between issues in the left pane.

The comments section of an issue marks comments made in the current review and provides an extra filter that limits comments to those made in this review.

The review comments can be resolved individually and resolved comments can be reopened if needed.

  • Once you have finished reviewing the issue in the scope of the review set the status of your review subtask to completed.

The status indicates that you have completed your work on the review.