Lesson 2: Adding an approval to the release

You can add approval requests to the phases in a release. When you add an approval request, the approval must be provided before deployments that are scheduled for that phase can start.

Approval requests act as deployment gates. If a phase has an approval request, a deployment that is scheduled for that phase cannot start until approval is provided. Approval requests are assigned to roles, not individual users. Any team member with the expected role can supply the approval.

In this lesson, you use the Release Detail page to add an approval request to the DEV phase of the release you created in the previous lesson. Later in the tutorial, when you run a deployment for the DEV phase, you must approve the request before the deployment can start.

  1. From the Release Detail page for the Demo Release, click the Edit Phase icon for the DEV phase, as shown in the following figure:

    The Edit Phase icon
    The Phase Approvals area is displayed, as shown in the following figure:

    The Phase Approval area

    Unless you copy a release, new releases use the Default Plan deployment plan for each phase in the release. If you schedule a deployment by using the Pipeline view, the plan in the Default Plan field is used. Each phase can have its own default deployment plan assigned to it. If you schedule a deployment by using the Deployments page, you can select any deployment plan associated with the release. You are not constrained to use the deployment plan in the Default Plan field. In this tutorial, you add tasks to the Default Plan, so you do not need to change it.

  2. In the Phase Approvals area, click Add New.
  3. In the Approval dialog box, in the Approval Name field, enter Development approval.
  4. In the Role list, select Release Manager.
    A user with the Release Manager role must approve any deployment that is scheduled for the DEV phase, including the deployment that you run in a later lesson.
  5. Click Save.
    The approval request is listed in the Phase Approvals area.

Lesson checkpoint

In this lesson, you added an approval request to the release's DEV phase. Any deployment that is scheduled for the DEV phase must be approved by a team member in the selected role.

The approval request for the DEV phase is shown in the following figure. If a team has several members in the required role, any user in the role can approve the request. A single approval is required regardless of the number of team members in the role. A phase can have more than one approval request.
Approval request for the DEV phase