Require approval to publish a Workflow

By default, all PagerDuty Workflow Automation users with Builder permission can edit, create, and publish Workflows. With Publish Control enabled, you can require all draft Workflows to be reviewed before publication, and start new Workflows in draft mode by default.

With Publish Control, users can no longer publish drafts, and instead make requests to publish. Whenever a user requests to publish their draft, an instance of an approval Workflow starts. If the approval Workflow is approved, the draft is published; if the Workflow is not approved, the draft is rejected. PagerDuty Workflow Automation provides a prebuilt approval Workflow, or you can even create your own.

Use case

Publish Control is a simple way to help your team collaborate and make sure your live Workflows are only updated after a review.

Example

• Arnold’s PagerDuty Workflow Automation team has gained a lot of new members recently. He wants to get his new members working on live, high profile Workflows. To make collaboration easier, Arnold enables Publish Control so all Workflows require approval to publish. Now his teammates can create versions of Workflows, and make requests to publish their versions when they’re ready—with no risk of affecting a live process. For each request, Arnold gets a task so he can approve or reject the request.

How Publish Control works

 

Publish Control makes two major changes:

• All Workflows start in draft mode.
• All draft Workflows must be approved by an admin to be published.

When Publish Control is enabled, all users are required to pass approval—including admins. Draft versions will have a button at the top which begins the approval process.

When a request is made, whichever Workflow was chosen for approval will start. The approval Workflow can use the Workflow: Publish a Workflow action to publish drafts. If the Publish a Workflow action completes, the draft is published, if the action is skipped, the draft is rejected

When a request to publish is rejected, users are notified. There will be a on the Builder page of the rejected draft version. Users can request to publish again at any time.

note

• Note: If necessary, admins can Force Publish a Workflow and bypass the approval process. Learn more.

How the approval Workflow works

Whenever a user requests to publish a Workflow, an instance of an approval Workflow starts. The user’s draft Workflow will remain as a draft until the approval Workflow completes.

The approval Workflow is an actual PagerDuty Workflow Automation Workflow that starts every time a request is made. In other words, each request to publish is actually an instance of the approval Workflow—If the instance of the approval Workflow completes, the draft is published; if the instance does not complete, the draft is rejected. PagerDuty Workflow Automation provides a prebuilt approval Workflow, or you can even create your own. You can choose the approval Workflow your team will use from the Workflow Settings page of the admin team center.

Many users find it useful to create their own approval Workflow. A common pattern is to use Table actions to update a data table with information from each request. Other teams use Slack actions to send messages to a team channel when a request is made, that way admins can discuss the request.

How to enable Publish Control

1. Open the menu in the top navigation bar, and select Admin.
2. Select Workflow Settings from the list.

3. Enable Publish Control by flipping the toggle to on.

   

4. Optionally, select the Workflow to start for each request to publish. By default, the Request to Publish Draft Workflow is used.
5. Your changes are saved automatically.

Choose the Workflow to start for new requests

On this page, users can choose a Workflow to start for each request to publish. The Workflow selected will be used for all requests to publish. One instance starts for each request.

Example

• Arnold enabled Publish Control on his team, and was using the prebuilt Request to Publish Draft Workflow provided by PagerDuty Workflow Automation. He had the idea to update a table every time a request is made, so he recently built his own Workflow with additional table actions, and ends with the Workflow: Publish a Workflow action. He can change Publish Control to use his Workflow from the admin team center.

You can select any Workflow to use as the approval Workflow. See How to customize the approval Workflow.

How to customize the approval Workflow

PagerDuty Workflow Automation provides a prebuilt Workflow you can use to manage publication requests from your team. The prebuilt Request to Publish Draft Workflow has 2 steps.

In the first step, a task is assigned to a team member—they can approve or reject the request from the task. If approved, the second step, Publish Draft Workflow, completes and the draft is published; if rejected, the Publish Draft Workflow step is skipped, and the request to publish is rejected.

It’s recommended to use a similar structure if designing your own approval Workflow. At a minimum, you should include a Assign task to a person action, but a Workflow: Publish a Workflow action is required.

note

• Note: You must include the Workflow: Publish a Workflow action in your approval Workflow in order to successfully publish drafts. If the action is not included, no Workflows will be updated.

How to Force Publish a draft version

All users, including admins, must have their request to published approved. If necessary, admins can bypass the normal request process and Force Publish a draft.

1. Select to start the request process.

2. Select and select Force Publish

   

3. You will be prompted and asked to confirm. Select OK.

Get help with a problem or question

If something’s not working as expected, or you’re looking for suggestions, check through the options below.

Can I cancel my publish request?

Yes, you can cancel any active publish request. Once a request is approved, it can no longer be cancelled.

1. Select to start the request process.
2. Select and select Cancel Publish Request

1. You will be prompted and asked to confirm. Select OK.