Show the deployment approval comment in the UI

Release notes

You can now see the comments left by users when reviewing a deployment, providing more context as to why manual job was approved or rejected. This functionality is also useful for organisations in highly regulated industries that need to audit release events.

Problem to solve

As a deployment reviewer or deployment executor, I can view the reason for an approved or rejected deployment in the UI, so I understand the why the reviewer made their decision.

Intended users

• Delaney (Development Team Lead)
• Rachel (Release Manager)

User experience goal

The user should be able to view the comment from a reviewer about they approval or rejection decision for a deployment job.

Proposal

• In the Environment detail page, when click the Approval options button, the user should see the comment of the reviewer in the UI inside the deployment approval popover.
• Display the new content in a new section titled Comments, below the input text area. OR we could have an expand/collapse pattern - which would help keeping the popover's content under a bit of control.
• Display the name, avatar, timestamp, and comment.
• If multiple comments are available, display the newest on top.

Further details

• Should the comment be added to the To-Dos, once we implement it?

Permissions and Security

• Add expected impact to members with no access
• Add expected impact to Guest
• Add expected impact to Reporter
• Add expected impact to Developer
• Add expected impact to Maintainer
• Add expected impact to Owner

Documentation

We will need to update the docs https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/environments/deployment_approvals.html

Availability & Testing

Available Tier

GitLab Premium

Feature Usage Metrics

Adoption and usage of the commenting feature. Metrics:

• Number of unique users including comments in the approvals
• % of approvals with a comment

What does success look like, and how can we measure that?

What is the type of buyer?

• Alex - the Application Development Manager
• Casey - the Release and Change Management Director
• Skyler - the Chief Information Security Officer

Is this a cross-stage feature?

This proposal is related to an Audit Event. Cross-shared with groupcompliance | See categories

Links / references

#342180 (closed) #342439 (closed)