Reviews are the core of CoLab - they are where you can collect feedback on a file or set of files, assign specific reviewers, and ensure you have a history of actions taken as needed.
To start a review, you will need to have a Workspace and one or more files in that Workspace. If you're not at that stage yet, you can read more on creating Workspaces, and on uploading files throughout our knowledge base.
You can create a review in three ways in CoLab. Most reviews will be created from a Workspace or Portal, or from a file within one of those. Occasionally, you will also want to create a review directly from your Home page.
Creating a review from a Workspace, Portal, or open file
From a Workspace or Portal, you can open a review by right-clicking on the filename and selecting Request Review from the menu.
Alternatively, you can open any package or file directly and click on "Request Review" in the top right corner of the screen to do the same.
In either case, you will be presented with a screen to enter details about your review.
The only requirement of this page is to add a review title, but you can optionally add both a start and a due date for the review, assign relevant checklists, and add a description for reviewers to understand the goals of the review.
You can also optionally use a Review Template by clicking on the "Select a template" option at the top of the modal, and choosing a template to apply.
When you've added the details you want to add, click Next.
On this page, you'll invite reviewers, who are responsible for adding feedback and engaging in the review as a whole.
You can also invite review owners, who are generally those responsible for ensuring the review is complete and for driving the outcomes involved. Review owners do not have separate permissions applied to them by default but can have them added through custom roles.
Note that, by default, review owners are not also reviewers - to ensure that review owners are also able to contribute their feedback to and submit reviews, it is recommended that you add them as reviewers as well.
Creating a review from the Home page
From your Home page, you can click on the "Create Review" button to the right of the page.
If you start a review from this page, you'll need to choose a Workspace as an additional step to the rest of the review creation process.
If you open the Workspace Reviews sidebar while inside any workspace, you can do something similar by clicking on the + at the top of the reviews sidebar.
In either case this will lead you through the two normal steps to create a review without a file, and default to opening a blank notebook. You can add a file to the review in the right sidebar.
