Add comment when approving/rejecting a deployment

Release notes

In this release, we have introduced additional review capabilities to deployment management. You can now leave a comment when reviewing a deployment, providing more context as to why the deployment was approved or rejected. This functionality is also useful for organizations in highly regulated industries that need to audit release events.

Problem to solve

As a deployment reviewer, I want to provide a reason for approving/rejecting a deployment, so that my team is informed about the deployment management and we can audit releases.

Intended users

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

User experience goal

The user should be able to write a comment when they approve or reject a manual deployment job.

Proposal

• In the same flow of the approve/reject deployment, the user sees an optional input text field in the popover where they can enter a comment about the deployment review.
• The maximum number of characters a user can enter in the input text field is 250. Form validation should be available. Follow the Pajamas / gitlab-ui validation guidelines.
• The input text field supports all special characters.
• Clicking the Approve button closes the popover, the data is submitted and saved. The deployment status is updated and job action is taken based on the user selection (approve/reject).
• Clicking the Cancel button closes the popover, the date is not submitted. Any text entered in the text area component is lost.
• Clicking outside of the popover closes it. If user entered text in the input field but closes the popover not submitting the changes, reopening the popover should display the text they entered (draft state).
• If the user tries to submit a message/review a deployment but no longer has permission to do so, an error message is displayed in the UI.
  • frontend - Use the Alert UI component appropriate for each alert/error state.
  • UI text - You don't have permission to review this deployment. Contact your system admin for help

Out of scope

• The message is saved in the audit events together with the review #354782 (closed)
• The deployment author receives a notification about the new deployment #354783
• Editing/deleting a comment
• Adding a comment after a deployment is approved/rejected
• Tagging/mentioning a user in a comment
• Emoji support in the text field
• Displaying the comment in the UI after an approval #354508 (closed)
• Add character counter component to gitlab-ui gitlab-ui#1243 (closed)

Further details

Permissions and Security

• Add expected impact to members with no access (0)
• Add expected impact to Guest (10) members
• Add expected impact to Reporter (20) members
• Add expected impact to Developer (30) members
• Add expected impact to Maintainer (40) members
• Add expected impact to Owner (50) members

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?

No.

Links / references

#342180 (closed)