Preserve Author “Answered” Status When Reviewer Replaces a Response

vishal

State Street Requested this Enhancement

Enhancement description

A user assigned as a Reviewer should only perform Reviewer-specific workflow action if they replace the Author’s response. Replacing an existing response should not cause the Author’s Answered toggle to become untoggled or require the Reviewer to mark the response Answered again. Answered is an Author-specific completion action; a Reviewer should only be responsible for marking the response Reviewed. Requiring a Reviewer to perform both actions creates an inaccurate workflow record by attributing an Author-specific completion action to a user acting solely in a Reviewer capacity.

Current behavior / problem

If a Reviewer deletes the existing answer and enters a replacement, the question can revert to an unanswered state and the Reviewer is effectively required to mark it Answered. This causes the Reviewer to be represented as both the responder / Author and Reviewer, creating confusion in workflow status and weakening the audit trail.

Required product behavior

• A user assigned only as Reviewer should retain the Reviewer role even after materially editing or fully replacing the response.
• A Reviewer should complete the work using the Reviewed action, not an Author-specific Answered action.
• The system should preserve the original Author attribution and separately record the Reviewer’s edit / replacement activity.
• Audit history should clearly show who authored the original response, who edited or replaced it, and who performed the review / approval action.
• Editing or replacing an answer must not silently change the user’s workflow role.
• If the system must technically transition question status while content is replaced, that transition should not change role attribution or require the Reviewer to impersonate the Author workflow.

Business impact

State Street uses the audit trail to demonstrate who authored, reviewed, modified, and approved responses. Reclassifying a Reviewer as an Author creates a governance problem because the historical record can imply that the same user both authored and reviewed the answer. It also complicates SME training because legitimate Reviewer behavior—editing or replacing a response—causes unexpected workflow actions and status changes.

support

Zoom Clip showing current behavior when Reviewer deletes a response and the 'Answered' toggle becomes untoggled: https://zoom.us/clips/share/Y7znPUmQTeaJkZO546SJog

It may help to further substantiate the FinServ impact here

Audit Trail Requirements: accurate role (author vs. reviewer) attribution within the audit trail is a real governance requirement, (it goes beyond a workflow preference of having less buttons to click) .

Financial Service clients rely on the audit history to demonstrate who originally authored a response, who subsequently modified or replaced it, and who reviewed/approved the final answer. They have specifically shared that these records are used during examinations to explain differences between approved library content and what ultimately went to the client.

The current behavior can distort that history. If an SME assigned only as a Reviewer replaces an existing response, the Answered toggle is automatically cleared and the SME must mark the question both Answered and Reviewed. Activities can then record that Reviewer as having “completed” the answer, even though their actual workflow responsibility was to review/refine/approve it.

For a regulated client, those are materially different actions. The audit trail should preserve the distinction between authorship, modification, and approval, regardless of how substantially a Reviewer edits the underlying response.

User Experience Impact: There is also a usability/adoption impact: SMEs are intentionally trained to complete their responsibility through Reviewed. Introducing an additional Answered action only when they replace an existing response creates ambiguity about which action they are expected to take and increases the risk of inconsistent workflow behavior. Their SME’s often get confused with our platform (trying to manage high volumes of questionnaires with hundreds of questions), and this would help to simplify their experience

State Street has about 2,000 SME's collaborating on these projects - they have had a very high volume of emails from SME's who have confusion about this behavior.

Is there any way for the "answered" toggle to remain toggled unless an assigned Author untoggles it? The logic being.... If an SME is not assigned an an Author, they should not have the ability to use the "Answered" Toggle at all, as this button is specific to the Authoring task.