Quality States with Mandatory Attributes

Overview

It is possible to set fields, relations, tag groups, and subscription roles and types as mandatory to improve the Fact Sheet quality per Fact Sheet types. The Quality Seal is enhanced with the two new states ‘Draft’ and ‘Rejected’. The Configuration is extended with a new tab ‘Quality Seal’ for the configuration of the new states and mandatory attributes.

High Level Workflow

  1. Workspace admins enable the ‘Draft’ state and specify the mandatory attributes for each Fact Sheet type in the Configuration.
  2. After the new state is enabled, all the newly created Fact Sheets will be in the ‘Draft’ state1.
  3. You will get visual guidance on the Fact Sheet details pages about where to populate mandatory attributes.
  4. After all mandatory attributes are populated, responsible subscribers can approve or reject Fact Sheets.

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Information

  1. The mandatory attributes configuration will also apply to all Fact Sheets in your workspace. Regardless of when they were created. Fact Sheets that have been approved before, but don’t fulfil all requirements, will remain approved. You will see the missing mandatory attributes in the sidebar of each existing Fact Sheet.

Extension of the Quality Seal

States of the Quality Seal

The following states are now available:

  1. Draft (NEW): This Quality State can be enabled by workspace admins within the Configuration. New Fact Sheets with defined mandatory attributes will occur in the ‘Draft’ state. From this state, it is possible to ‘Reject Fact Sheet’ or ‘Approve Fact Sheet’ for the responsible user. It is only possible to ‘Approve Fact Sheet’ when all mandatory attributes are populated.

  1. Rejected (NEW): This state can be optionally enabled by the workspace admin within the Configuration. A responsible user can ‘Reject Fact Sheet’ from a ‘Draft' and leave a comment for the requesting user. From the state ‘Rejected’ it is possible to ‘Set to Draft’ or to ‘Approve Fact Sheet’ by a responsible user. It is only possible to ‘Approve Fact Sheet’ when all mandatory fields have been populated. 'Rejected’ is a state to document that the fact sheet as such is rejected and will be taken out of the data quality process rather than work on completing the Fact Sheet.

  1. Approved: This state is available either when the ‘Draft’ or ‘Check needed’ state is enabled within the Configuration. Depending on the configuration it is possible to ‘Renew’ a Fact Sheet, ‘Break Quality Seal’ manually, 'Set to Draft’ or ‘Reject Fact Sheet’ for responsible users.

  1. Check needed: This state is available when the ‘Broken’ state is enabled within the Configuration. It is displayed as ‘Check needed’ on the Fact Sheets Details Page. Depending on the configuration it is possible to ‘Approve Fact Sheet', 'Set to Draft’ or ‘Reject Fact Sheet’ for responsible users.

  1. Disabled: This state occurs, when the Quality Seal is not enabled at all. It does not occur within the UI.

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Information

By default, only the factsheets with Quality States Broken and Approved are included in the reports. In case you'd like to change this to include other Quality States by default, please contact your CSM.

How to use mandatory attributes

Enable Feature within the Configuration

Within the Configuration, ‘Quality Seal’ workspace admins can enable the different Quality States and define mandatory attributes per Fact Sheet Type. This tab also contains the old Quality Seal Configuration, which was formerly on the ‘Fields’ tab, as well as the new Quality Seal Configuration.

To enable the feature:

  1. Open any Fact Sheet
  2. Click on the Configuration under the More Actions
  3. Click the Quality Seal tab

These are the main section on the Quality Seal tab where you can configure based on your needs.

  1. Enable/Disable ‘Broken': This option enables the Quality Seal for the state ‘Broken’ (as well known as 'check needed'. You can manually break the Quality Seal based on your permission. The Quality Seal breaks as well if you, which are not responsible, change fields of an 'Approved’ Fact Sheet. When this state is enabled, a renewal interval can be set to break the Quality Seal after a defined time as a reminder to do a revision.

  2. Enable/Disable ‘Draft’: This option enables the Quality Seal for the state ‘Draft’. New Fact Sheets will be automatically set as 'Draft’ and its configuration is the precondition in order to define fields as mandatory.

  3. Enable/Disable ‘Rejected’: This option extends the Quality Seal for the option ‘Rejected’.

  4. Different subsections: Each subsection offers the configuration to set the regarding attribute as mandatory.

Combination of the state configuration and the state of new Fact Sheets

The state of your new Fact Sheet is determined by the configuration of the Quality Seal. Here's a summary of possible configurations and their impacts:

Broken Quality Seal StateDraft Quality Seal StateNew Fact Sheet State
EnabledEnabledDraft
DisabledEnabledDraft
EnabledDisabledBroken (displayed as Check needed)
DisabledDisabledApproved

Create and approve new Fact Sheets within the Details Page

When the state 'Draft' is enabled and mandatory attributes are assigned, all newly created Fact Sheets will occur in the 'Draft' state. All the required attributes will be shown on the right-hand side menu. A checkbox indicates the state of the field, whether the field is completed or not. You can treat the checkboxes as a shortcut to let you directly jump to the respective field which needs to be populated.

When all mandatory attributes are populated, responsible users can approve the Fact Sheet. In case they reject the Fact Sheet, the responsible users can leave comments for you, as the initial user. You can also get email notifications when the responsible users add your email address.

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Information

If you approve a Fact Sheet and later define new mandatory attributes, the Fact Sheet will remain approved. However, you will see the missing mandatory attributes in the sidebar for you to know what fields are missing.

Once a Fact Sheet is approved, you can still edit the value of the mandatory fields if necessary. However, it is not possible to remove and leave the mandatory fields empty.

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Information

If this situation arises, it will overwrite the actual behavior of the breaking operations, which sets the approved Fact Sheet to the broken state in case an unauthorized user changes a certain field.

Mandatory Attributes

Mandatory Fields

Mandatory fields are defined in their own subsection of the Quality Seal tab within the config. Unused or read-only fields shouldn’t be defined as mandatory. This configuration will be only active when the 'Draft' state is enabled. You will see all the active and possible fields that can be set as mandatory and you can define multiple fields as mandatory.

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Information

You can only set fields as mandatory when the fields are part of the data model. Customer-defined fields are part of the data model and can be set as mandatory.

Except for the description field, base Fact Sheet fields such as ID, Display Name, Level or Status cannot be set as mandatory.

Mandatory Relations

Mandatory relations are defined in their own subsection of the Quality Seal tab within the config similar to the mandatory fields. The option configuration will be available when the 'Draft' state is enabled.

If a relation is set as mandatory, then you have to set at least one relation. You can also add more relations if needed.

When enabled, you will be able to see the mandatory relations checkboxes on the right-hand side menu, similar to the mandatory fields.

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Information

The last mandatory relation cannot be emptied of an approved Fact Sheet as well for the initial Fact Sheet as for the connected one. Setting a relation as 'empty on purpose’ counts as filled relation.

Mandatory Subscription Roles and Types

It is also possible to define mandatory subscriptions roles and types from the Quality Seal tab in the config. To enable this configuration, you will need to enable the 'Draft" state.

The subscriptions roles depend on their mandatory subscription type (Responsible, Observer, All1) and can be only selected when the type has been set as mandatory upfront. It is possible to set only the subscription type as mandatory without defining roles.

You can set mandatory subscriptions roles that are available for ‘All’ Fact Sheet types as mandatory for only one or more specific Fact Sheets types. If a subscription type or role is set as mandatory, at least one subscription needs to be set and of course, more can be added. The last mandatory subscription cannot be emptied of an approved fact sheet.

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Information

  1. If you don't have any Subscription Roles set for the 'All' Subscription Type, the 'Any type' option will not be visible on your configuration panel.

The mandatory subscriptions are also listed on the right-hand side menu of the Fact Sheet. When you click on the items to complete the mandatory attribute, you will be directed to an 'Add Person' dialog on the 'Subscription Tab'. Then you can choose and select the responsible person for that specific Fact Sheet.

Mandatory subscription roles are shown as mandatory within the Administration. You will get a warning in case you want to delete a mandatory role.

Mandatory Tag Groups

Mandatory Tag Groups have their own subsection in the Quality Seal tab within the config, similar to the mandatory fields.

It is possible to set mandatory tag group roles which are available for ‘All’ Fact Sheet types, as mandatory for only one or more specific Fact Sheets types. If a tag group is set as mandatory, at least one tag needs to be set and of course, more can be added. The last mandatory tag of a mandatory tag group cannot be emptied of an approved Fact Sheet.

The mandatory tag groups are also listed on the right-hand side of the Fact Sheet similar to other mandatory attributes, you will be directed to the tags selection when clicking on the mandatory tag group. You will also see the set mandatory tag group available in the 'Select Tags' selection.

Mandatory Attributes and Conditional Fields

Mandatory Attributes and Conditional fields are interoperable. Consider the following example: In the Data Model we defined IT Components to contain a release field, but only if the Fact Sheet category is of type software.

"release": {
    "validators": null,
    "type": "STRING",
    "activatedBy": {
        "category": [
            "software"
        ]
    }
}
600

Inventory filtered by IT Components and showing the category filter.

As a consequence any Software IT Component does have a release field available, however Hardware and Service IT Components do not. We now define the release field as mandatory for IT Components.

1826

Configuring the Release field as mandatory using described method above.

On the Fact Sheet you will now see different applications of the Mandatory Attributes. On a Software IT Component the Mandatory Field is shown and, if not set, will also prevent the Quality Seal to be approved.

1263

A Software IT Component with an activated Release field.

On a Hardware IT Component however the field is not listed under "Mandatory Fields" and is also not required for the Fact Sheet to be approved.

1264

A Software IT Component with an deactivated Release field.