Approval workflows

Increase the quality of your tracking plan with protected main branch and branch approvals

Building a tracking plan is a team sport. Getting feedback from your team on the changes you’re making to the tracking plan helps with building alignment and keeping the plan consistent. Approval workflows are a powerful tool for the peer-review process. Typical workflow looks something like this:

1. Product manager creates a branch and updates the tracking plan
2. Product manager requests a review from a data person and a developer
3. Data person and developer review the branch and provide feedback
4. Reviewers might request changes to the branch
5. Once everyone is aligned, the branch is approved
6. Developer implements the tracking from the branch
7. The branch is merged

Branch status

Branch status makes it transparent at which step the peer-review process is and when it is changed, notifications are sent out to all branch collaborators so everyone is up to date on what the status is.

The branch status is always visible in the left sidebar and in the branch overview, accessible by clicking the Avo logo in the top left corner:

The branch status is changed on the tracking plan changes page, accessible by clicking “View Changes” next to the branch status and below the branch name.

The available branch statuses in Avo are:

• Open: Indicates that the branch is in draft state and is currently being worked on. The main call to action when the branch status is Open is Ready for review
• Ready for review: Indicates that a review has been requested. Make sure to at-mention the people you want a review from or add them as branch collaborators before you change the status to ensure they are notified. The main call to action when the branch status is Ready for review is Approve
• Request changes: Indicates that a reviewer has requested changes to the branch before it can be approved. The main call to action when the branch status is Request changes state is Ready for review
• Approved: Indicates that the suggestions in this branch have been approved and are ready to be implemented. The main call to action when the branch status is Approved is Merge branch
• Merged: Indicates that the branch has been merged to the main tracking plan and that the branch has now served its purpose. A merged branch has no call to action
• Closed: Indicates that the branch has been closed and the changes are not intended to be merged into the main tracking plan. A closed branch has no call to action

Configuring approval workflows

Approval workflows can be configured in three ways:

1. Protected main branch
2. Require admin approval
3. Require multiple approvals

Protected main branch

To make sure no one accidentally makes changes directly on the main branch and to encourage peer reviews of branches, you can opt in to protecting the main branch. That means:

• Only admins can make changes directly on the main branch
• Only admins can merge branches that haven’t been approved by a branch collaborator (editor or admin)

Enabling protected main branch is a prerequisite for using require admin approval and require multiple approvals.

To enable this configuration, click the settings wheel in your workspace, in Workspace settings go into the Permissions tab and check “Protected main branch”.

Require admin approval

To make sure all tracking plan changes are reviewed by a dedicated group of people, you can opt in to require admin approval. That means that branch cannot be merged into the main branch unless at least one admin has approved the changes.

To enable this configuration, click the settings wheel in your workspace, in Workspace settings go into the Permissions tab and check “Require admin approval”. Note that “Protected main branch” must be enabled to enable “Require admin approval”.

Require multiple approvals

You can configure how many approvals are required to merge a branch. By default, only one approval is required, but you can require up to three approvals before a branch can be merged. When the branch status is changed to Draft or Request Changes, all previous approvals are removed and the approval counter resets.

To change the number of required approvals, click the settings wheel in your workspace, in Workspace settings go into the Permissions tab and change the “Number of required approvals”. Note that “Protected main branch” must be enabled to enable “Require admin approval”.

Requiring multiple approvals can be used in combination with required admin approvals. In that case, the number of required approvals is the number of admins that need to approve the changes before the branch can be merged.