EWM Code Review Approvals - stay Pending
We have recently started to use Code Review in EWM 7.0.2.
I have trouble to understand how the Review 'State' shown in the Approvals tab of the Work Item relates to the 'Code Review Status' and the 'Reviewers Status' shown on the Code Review Page.
When I submit the code for review, the reviewers get listed on the Approvals tab of the Work Item. The State is 'Pending'.
When the reviewer have reviewed and approved by selecting Done -> Approve, the status on the Code Review page change to 'Approved'.
But still the Review 'State' shown in the Approvals tab of the Work Item shows 'Pending' !
Why is this, shouldn't it get updated?
Also what is the purpose of the Author being able to 'Close' the review ?
Isn't it already closed when all is approved?
Is 'Close' mandatory?
Thanks
Accepted answer
I'm going to provide an answer which is similar to the comment Vinitha provided, so that this question can be marked as answered.
In summary, if you use an EWM/RTC Eclipse client older than 7.0 (ex: 6.0.6.1) (regardless of the version of the server), then when using the Submit for Review wizard, the client will automatically create Review type Approvals on the work item (this is the client calling API on the server to do this). This is because prior to 7.0 the SCM based Code Review web-ui feature did not record/manage the overall code review status or list of reviewers or their review status, and so customers were free to use the Approvals on the work item to manage this.
As of 7.0, these features were brought inside the Code Review tool itself.
Note: It also could be ambiguous when using Review type approvals on the work item itself, as there could be many names added there, even duplicate reviewers, some could be approved, some could be rejected, and the Review approval might be used for something other than 'code reviews' (such as a 'security review' of something, etc.). This is another benefit of moving away from work item approvals in order to track the specific code review status.
So in summary, as of 7.0, work item approvals are not used with the Code Review workflow, and if they were created because an older Eclipse client was used, they can simply be removed.
Note: Another work around would be to not use the Submit for Review wizard in the older client, and instead open the work item in the web-ui and submit for review there. This works because the web would be served by the new server, which would not automatically add work item approvals...
You also asked about having the ability to 'close' a code review. This is not required. If you close a code review, it essentially locks down the work item, which prevents you from adding additional change sets on the work item (eg: to avoid delivering a change and attaching it to the work item after things are approved). Certain customers may need these tighter constraints, but in general if you are comfortable with the old workflow of trusting the devs, and relying on email notifications, or seeing incoming changes delivered by other people then it's not required to close the code review.
Comments
vinitha dsouza
Feb 16 '22, 2:45 a.m.Bjorn Isheden
Feb 16 '22, 4:51 a.m.Thank you Vinitha!
You are absolutely right.
Obviously, the RTC6 Client is not fully compatible with EWM7 server.
We have problems using the version 7.0.2 Client and are still using the RTC6 Client.
Managing large number of modules is very difficult using v7.0.2 Client because of the changed filtering options:
Component additions/removals not considered when "show unchanged components" is deactivated (469629)
Unfortunately, the above feature was not implemented as proposed :(