Approving Merge Requests

Merge Requests can track all changes, updates, and new files in Policy documentation. Initially this is marked as a draft. Once the draft status has been removed, the approval process begins. The approvals are given from separate groups in the Gitlab project.

The approval groups are as follows:

  • Leadership

  • Gitlab QC

  • Policy Supervisor

  • Legal (If needed, must be assigned as a reviewer)

Supervisor approver role is determined per policy section, this can be stated as a comment in the first merge request and will be pre-populated for any changes thereafter.

Prerequisites

  • The Merge Request is no longer in draft form

  • A Merge Request review has been requested

Video Walkthrough

Coming Soon

Approval Procedure

  1. Log into GitLab and navigate to the Merge Request Dashboard

  2. You should see a page that looks similar to the example below:

    train approve merge request 1

  3. On the Merge Request page you will see a section that shows reviews requested of you as highlighted in red in the example below:

    train approve merge request 2

  4. Click on the Title of the Merge Request where you have been assigned as a reviewer

    Once you are at the merge request, there are a few things of interest to take a look at which are identified under the picture below:

    train approve merge request 3

    1. This section identifies the merge request title

    2. This section identifies the general reason why the merge request is being requested.

    3. This section identifies the assignee and person who created the merge request

    4. The section identifies the people that have been tagged as reviewers

    5. This section identifies default approvers for the project and their associated sections. (Notice there is a minimum approval number for each role)

    6. This section identifies that the merge request is blocked pending approvals

      Also, in section 2 of the image, notice the "Closes #7" link. This identifies the issue that this merge request was created for. This is where all changes will be listed along with contact information, context, and changes to be made.

  5. Navigate to the issue to view a description of changes being made by clicking the "Closes #" link in the merge request description. Here you will find a issue description similar to the image below:

    train approve merge request 4

  6. After reviewing a description of changes from the issue and activities, navigate back to the merge request by clicking on the merge "Related merge request" just above the activities section of the issue.

    train approve merge request 5

  7. At the Merge Request page, changes can be viewed by clicking on commits. The commit messages are listed here that describe the change that is happening to the policy.

    train approve merge request 6

  8. The commit messages can be clicked on to view the changes side by side.

    train approve merge request 7

  9. Navigating back to the overview, a preview page can be used for review by clicking the "View app" button to show a preview rendering of the PAMMS site with only the section being reviewed. This helps identify issues prior to deployment. train approve merge request 8

    train approve merge request 9

  10. Once the a reviewer is satisfied with the changes being made and has verified the preview page, click the "Approve" button to give your approval.

    train approve merge request 10

    If a change is made after approval is given, the approval is revoked and the process must be performed again.

Final Steps

After all approvals have been given, the merge request will auto merge the changes and re-build the production PAMMS site through an automated process.