Expiry and re-approval
A policy signed off two years ago and never looked at since is worse than no policy, because people trust it. Expiry brings approved pages back around on a schedule and tells everyone when they are due.
Expiry is a re-review clock, not a response deadline. It has no effect on a request still waiting for answers. The clock starts once the approval reaches approved or rejected.
#Two ways a page comes back
Trigger | When | Who is asked again |
|---|---|---|
The page is edited | Immediately, on publish | The same reviewers, same thresholds |
The deadline passes | On the next hourly sweep | The same reviewers, all reset |
Editing is covered on How approvals work. If the approval came from a team, the team current members and settings are re-read first, so somebody who joined last week is included.
Only an exact date at least a day ahead carries across an edit. Period based expiry is recalculated when the new round completes, so the clock runs from the new sign-off rather than the old one.
#Setting an expiry
Three places, and the more specific one wins.
Where | Applies to |
|---|---|
The approval panel, on one page | That page. See Request an approval. |
A team configuration | Everything that team approves in that space. See Teams and assignment. |
Space settings | Every approval in the space. See Space settings. |
#The options
Option | Notes |
|---|---|
No expiry | The default. Stays approved until edited. |
1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year | Counted from when the approval completes. |
Custom interval | Days, weeks, months or years. A day interval cannot be lower than 7. |
Exact date | A fixed calendar date. Today or earlier moves to tomorrow. |
#What happens when it expires
An hourly job finds approvals past their deadline, resets every reviewer to in review, and notifies everyone. The page is no longer approved.
Before the deadline | After the sweep |
|---|---|
| APPROVED | REVIEW |
#Rejected pages expire too
Internally complete means approved or rejected, and the clock treats both the same. A rejected page comes back for re-review on the same schedule as an approved one.
#Finding what is about to lapse
Expiry dates are searchable and sortable, so you can build a standing view of everything due next month and work through it at a monthly meeting. See Search and reporting.
#A few things that catch people out
Expiry is processed hourly. Do not build a process that depends on minute-level timing.
An approval that never completes never expires, including one where everybody only commented.
A pending approval only ever expires on an exact date. Relative periods need a decision first.
Automatic publishing fires on approval only, never on rejection or expiry. See Publishing.
#Related
Nothing goes stale without somebody being told.
