Manual:Quality management

The importance of content quality

QM tools menu

For many companies, the quality of the information they produce and share is of great importance. At the same time, they want to capture all the knowledge of their employees without creating any unnecessary barriers.

In BlueSpice, it is very easy to do both. Anyone many users can contribute their knowledge. Ideally, anyone can contribute information right away and specialists can then review and approve the content. This ensures that the quality of the content meets the standards of the company. You should always way the benefits and drawbacks of individual quality management features so that you don't create unnecessary roadblocks for users who are eager to contribute.

To access these features, you open the QM tools (with the checkbox icon) in the Page tools panel.

For quality assurance purposes, each content page has the following built-in tools:

• Page information
• Page assignments
• Reminder (BlueSpice pro)
• Expiry (BlueSpice pro)
• Review (BlueSpice pro)
• Acceptance (BlueSpice pro - if FlaggedRevs is activated for the namespace)

Permissions overview

This permissions table shows the necessary minimum permissions a user needs to have to complete an action:

feature action permission user (read) editor reviewer admin maintenance-admin bot

Page

assignments Can create and manage assignments for any user pageassignments x x x Can be assigned to a page pageassigneable x Reminder Can create and manage reminders for any user remindereditall x x Can create and manage their own reminders x Expiry Can set and manage page expiration dates expirearticle x x x Review Can create and manage review workflows x Can be assigned to a review workflow x Acceptance Can approve a page review x x x Can approve own changes autoreview x x Can automatically approve rollbacks autoreviewrestore x x

To access these features, you open the QM tools (with the checkbox icon) in the Page tools area.

Page information

The page information gives you some very interesting statistics about the page. Based on this information, you can decide what quality management measures are necessary to improve the page.

The information that is listed on this page is:

• time of last edit and last editor
• number of views
• templates used on this page
• similar pages
• categories
• readers of this page
• authors of this page

Page assignments

Page assignments are a quick way of giving one or more users informal responsibility and ownership of a page. They are very similar to a watchlist. A user can add a page to their watchlist themselves, but users also create page assignments for each otherassignments are made by other users.

Page assignments do not change the behavior of the page or grant special rights on a page. For example, the page does not get locked for editing when it is assigned to another user. It is rather a simple mechanism to have users "take a look" at a page. If the feature Read confirmation is activated for a namespace, assigned users have to confirm with a checkbox on the page that they have read the page.

Characteristics

• Assigned users receive notifications Notifications are sent to assigned users when their page assignment is changed. (This can be deactivated in the user preferences.)
• Transparency: Assigned users are listed under the assignments for the page in the Quality management menu QM tools panel of the page.
• The page is listed on the Assignment management page, which is accessed from Global actions > Management : (Special:ManagePageAssignments)
• The page is listed on the Assignments manager page of the assigned user, which is easy to Quick access from the user profile menu.
• Namespace-specific: if a namespace has Read confirmation activated, the Read confirmation: page shows a read confirmation in the alert area of the page.checkbox for assigned users (optional)

More about page assignments

Reminder

A user can create a reminder for a page by selecting a reminder date and by adding an optional comment. Reminders can also be created for other users by administrators and are a quick and informal way of setting due dates for page-related tasks.

Characteristics

• The user with the reminder receives a notification. (This can be deactivated in the user preferences.)
• Users with reminders are listed on the reminders for the page in the QM tools.
• The page is listed on the Reminders special page under "Global actions" (Special:Reminder).
• The page is listed on the user's Reminders page, which is easy to access from the user profile menu.

Expiry

If a page contains content with a known lifecycle, the page can be set to expire on a particular date. On the expiration date, a watermark "Outdated" is added to the page if the corresponding option is set in the ConfigManager.

The watermark is visible to logged-in users.

In addition, a reminder can be set so that the user will receive a notification when the page expires. The expiration can be deleted from the page at any time.

Characteristics

• The page displays a watermark from the expiration date on. (Depending on the global configuration.)
• The page is listed on the Expiry special page under "Global actions" (Special:Expiry)

• Watermark on page background and in PDF (can be configured)
• Management list: Special:Expiry
• Reminder possible
• Duration: Expiry can be removed at any time

Review

When a more formal review process is necessary, users can create a review workflow. The review workflow has an end date and is the only quality management tool that can lock the page for editing during the review phase. Each user casts a vote whether the page is acceptable or not.

The page is listed on the special page "Review" under "Global actions" (Special:Review) and on the reviewers' personal Review page.

Characteristics of the review feature

• One active review process per page
• Types: Sequential or parallel review
• Acceptance or rejection of steps by participants
• Page is locked for editing (Exception: depending on the configuration, reviewers can get edit rights)
• Automatic restart possible
• Revisions-based: Entries in the version history
• Acceptance: can be combined with the Acceptance feature

Acceptance

If the pages in a namespace should have a published and a draft version, the setting FlaggedRevs needs to be activated for that namespace. This activates the Acceptance feature of the quality management tools.

All changes to a page are collected in a draft version until any user with review rights accepts the page. The pages in this namespace are in draft mode until a user with the right to publish content accepts the page.

There is a global option in the ConfigManager to define which user groups are allowed to read unpublished content. By default, all logged-in users can view drafts.

Characteristics of the acceptance feature

• Revisions-based: First draft, draft, accepted
• External files: "Freezes" embedded media and templates
• Automatic acceptance: Often the result of a review process

Necessary permissions

• Permissions: Read permissions can (cautiously) be limited

Permissions overview

QM tool BlueSpice version Permissions Default roles Namespace setting Page assignments free pageassignments: user can assign pages to others maintenanceadmin

admin

editor

reviewer

Read confirmation pageassignable: pages can be assigned to users
all of the above plus

author

Reminder pro users with createpage permissions maintenanceadmin

admin

editor

reviewer

author

Expiry pro Review free workflowview: read-access to the review tool maintenanceadmin

admin

author

editor

reviewer

reader

workflowedit: create and edit reviews maintenanceadmin

admin

editor

reviewer

structuremanager

workflowlist: view the list of reviewers for the page maintenanceadmin

admin

editor

reviewer

review: cast review votes
maintenanceadmin

admin

reviewer

Acceptance pro review: cast review votes
maintenanceadmin

admin

reviewer

FlaggedRevs

This permissions table shows which roles have the necessary right to perform different quality assurance actions. The name of the right that grants a certain permission is shown in parentheses:

QA action	user (read)	editor	reviewer	admin	maintenance-admin	bot
Can create and manage page assignments for any user (pageassignments)			x	x	x
Can be assigned to a page (pageassigneable)	x
Can create and manage reminders for any user (remindereditall)				x	x
Can create and manage their own reminders (read)	x
Can set and manage page expiration dates (expirearticle)		x		x	x
Can create and manage review workflows (workflowedit)		x	x	x	x
Can be assigned to a review workflow (read)	x
Can view the review workflow on the page (workflowview)	x	x	x	x	x
Can view the complete list of reviews (workflowlist)		x	x	x	x
Can approve a page (review)			x	x	x
Own changes are automatically approved changes (autoreview)					x	x
Rollbacks are automatically approved (autoreviewrestore)					x	x

Related info

• Working with drafts (Flagged revisions)
• The review workflow