Review Updates

Approve an Update, ask for changes or reject it, on the web or in the Storyteller app.

Who reviews an Update is decided by your organization's approval processes for Updates. You can approve an Update, send it back with a note, or reject it, from the web or straight from the Storyteller app on your phone.

With no approval process, Updates from the Storyteller app are published when they're sent. Their photos, videos and recordings still wait for someone to review them, and the Update shows Published without review. To have Updates reviewed before supporters see them, set up a process: see Approval processes for Updates.

Before you start: an Update waiting in an approval process is decided by the people named on the step it's waiting at (administrators can stand in when nobody on the step is left). An Update waiting with no process is decided by people who can moderate Impact Stories. Either way, the Impact Story has to be one your role can see.

Approval processes for Updates

Set them up in Settings, Objects & Fields, Updates, Approvals (you need the Approvals permission and the permission to edit Objects & Fields). They work like a form's approvals: see Approve form submissions.

A process is chosen by who sends the Update: the roles, groups or people it covers, tried in order. A step can need any one approver, everyone listed or a number of people, and a later step can run only when the Update's type or an answer matches.
Every way an Update is sent goes through it: the Storyteller app, an Updates form, and a draft your team made on the web. A draft's editor who can't publish sees Send for approval instead of Approve.
While an Update waits, it's locked. Only the person who sent it and administrators can change or archive it, its photos included, and a change after someone has decided on it starts the approval again from the first step.
Photos, videos and recordings are reviewed one by one as before. Approving the Update approves the ones still waiting whose security check has finished.
Deleting or archiving an Update ends its approval; restoring it puts it back at the first step.

Review on the web

Find Updates waiting for review

Open an Impact Story, then select the Needs review filter on its list of Updates.

Open the Update

Read the Update, its answers, its photos, videos and recordings, and its Consent card. Play a recording right on the Update before you decide.

Decide

Select Approve, Request changes or Reject. You can also use the buttons on the Update's card in the list.

Approve publishes the Update straight away, or on its scheduled date. Its photos, videos and recordings that are still waiting are approved with it, except any whose security check hasn't finished.
Request changes sends the Update back to the person who wrote it, with a note saying what needs to change. The author sees your note. They edit the Update in the Storyteller app and send it again, and it comes back to Needs review.
Reject takes the Update off the list. A reason is required, and the author sees it.

The Needs changes filter lists Updates you sent back that haven't been sent again yet.

Updates with a recording

An Update whose only media is a recording needs a few words. Its text is what people read when they can't listen, so Givable won't approve it with the text empty. Add a sentence or two about the recording, then approve.
"No storyteller consent" shows on an Update that carries a recording and has no consent record from the Storyteller app, for example one your team made on the web. The recording follows the same rules as the Update's photos and videos; the label is there so you can check you have the person's agreement before you publish.
Supporters hear a recording on the Update's card, with a play button, a timeline and a speed control. Nothing plays until they press play.

If the author edits an Update while you're reading it, or a teammate decides it first, Givable reloads it instead of deciding on text you haven't read. Read it again, then decide.

Review in the Storyteller app

People who can review Updates see a To review tab in My work in the Storyteller app, beside To do. It lists the Updates waiting for you, oldest first, and its icon shows how many are waiting (9+ above nine). The My work icon at the bottom of the screen counts them too.

Select an Update to open it. You see its text, its answers, the form it came from, its photos, videos and recordings, and the consent facts. Play a recording on the phone before you decide.
Approve or Hide each photo, video or recording if you want to decide on them one by one.
Select Approve, Request changes or Reject. For the last two, write a note: the author sees it.

After you decide, the next Update opens.

You need a connection to decide. Offline, To review shows the last count and "Connect to review", and nothing is queued for later.
"No storyteller consent" shows in To review and on the Update when it carries a recording and has no consent record, the same label as on the web.
Nothing you review stays on your phone. Updates, photos, videos and recordings in review are shown while the screen is open and are never saved to the phone. Locking the app clears them.
Consent on the phone shows the facts only: how consent was taken, whether sharing is public or supporters only, the language, who captured it and when, and whether a signature or paper form is on file. Names and signature images stay on the web.
Some Updates have to be finished on the web. If a required answer is empty, or approving would hide a photo that's also used somewhere else, the app says Finish on the web and lets you copy the Update's web link.
Notifications: when a storyteller sends an Update, the people who decide it get "Updates are waiting for your review." in the app, at most once every 10 minutes: the approvers of the step it's waiting at, or people who can moderate Impact Stories when there's no process. Tap it to open To review.
The step shows on each Update in To review when it's in an approval process, for example "Step 2 of 3".

Your organization decides whether review happens in the app at all: see Review in the app.

Restore a deleted update

A storyteller can delete their own Update while it's in review, if their role allows it (see Deleting an update). Deleting archives it: it leaves review, and nothing is erased. You can bring it back.

Find it

Open the Impact Story and select the Recycle tab. Archived updates lists its archived Updates, newest first. Each one says who archived it and when: "Deleted by" a name "from the Storyteller app" when its author deleted it, or "Archived by" a name when someone on your team did. It also says until when its photos stay in the Media bin.

Open the Update

Select its title. A banner at the top repeats who deleted it, when, and until when its photos are kept. While it's archived, Approve, Request changes, Reject and the decisions on its photos aren't offered.

Restore it

Select Restore in the banner. The Update keeps its place in review: one that was waiting for review is back under Needs review.

You need the Archive permission on Updates to restore (administrators have it).
Its photos come back with it while they're still in the Media bin. Photos kept longer than the bin allows are deleted permanently and can't come back; after restoring, the page says how many, for example "3 photos were deleted permanently after 30 days."
Photos of a person whose consent was removed are never restored.
The Media bin shows them too. On the Media tab of the Recycle Bin, files archived with a deleted Update carry a From a deleted update link to that Update. Restoring a file there brings it back to your Media Library but not onto the Update, so restore the Update instead when you want both.

Reopen a withdrawn proposal

The person who proposed an Impact Story from the Storyteller app can withdraw it while it's waiting for review. Its review panel on the Impact Story then says "Withdrawn by" their name "from the Storyteller app", with the date.

Select Reopen to bring it back. It becomes a draft waiting for review again, and the Updates that were withdrawn with it wait for review again too. You need the Archive permission on Impact Stories to reopen one (administrators have it).

Storytellers can move photos, videos and recordings from one of their Updates to another (see Moving photos to another update). Removing a person's consent follows those moves: when you select Remove this person's consent on an Update, the dialog also says, for example, "2 photos moved from this update to another update will also be removed." Those items are removed wherever they went, because the person may be in them. The dialog never names the other Updates.

Who can review

People with permission to moderate Impact Stories, for the Impact Stories their role can see. Administrators can review everything.
You can't review your own Updates. Approving, requesting changes on or rejecting an Update you sent is left to another reviewer or an administrator. Administrators can review their own.

Troubleshooting

Set up the Storyteller app

Review in the app, push notifications and phone security.

See an Update's history

Who sent, reviewed and approved each Update.

Still stuck?

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