Skip to main content

Approving sensitive changes

Lesson 5 of 11 · 2 min 21 s. Episode 5 of the Jaah tutorial series: ask for a change that touches sign-in, and see the agent build and test it, then hold it on the Activity feed for a person. Read what it touches, approve it, watch it ship, and find the approval kept with the task.

Before you start​

  • A project connected to Jaah, with a Tasks list to open the new-task form from. The example is TimeSaver, a time-tracking app for small teams.
  • Tests in the project, so the agent can check its work before it asks you.

Steps​

  1. Open the new-task form from the project's Tasks and describe the change. Ours is: Add a sign-in screen to TimeSaver: people set a password in Settings, and the app asks for it before it shows their entries. Signing in, passwords and personal data are the kind of change most teams want a person to approve before it reaches production.
  2. Choose Unattended, where the agent decides everything itself, and press Go. Even on Unattended, a change like this one doesn't ship on the agent's word alone.
  3. Watch the task's line on the Activity feed. A while later, the task is asking: the agent has built the sign-in screen and run TimeSaver's tests, and because the change touches sign-in, it holds it for a person instead of delivering it. Until someone answers, nothing reaches production, and anyone who looks at the feed can see the task is waiting for a person.
  4. Open the task. It opens on the question, which says what the change touches, what the agent built and how it was checked, and what it proposes. Under it are your choices: approve the change, or keep it from shipping.
  5. If it's what you asked for, click the option that approves it. The agent picks the work back up where it stopped and delivers the change like any other.
  6. Watch the Activity feed again. A few minutes later, the work is finished, and the sign-in screen is in production.
  7. On the task's page, open Activity, then Q&A. The question is there with the answer you gave, who gave it and when. It's what you point to when someone asks, months later, who let a sign-in change through.
  8. Open Details for the rest of the story. The Outcome says what was built and how it was checked, for anyone who wasn't there when you approved it.
  9. Try it on TimeSaver's own site. In Settings, set a password under New password, type it again under Confirm new password, press Set password, and press Sign out. Then open the timesheet from the site's menu, and instead of your entries, the app asks for the password first.

What you learned​

  • A change that touches sign-in waits for a person, even when the task runs Unattended.
  • The task waits on the Activity feed, marked as asking, and nothing reaches production until someone answers.
  • You approve it from the question on the task's page, and the agent delivers the change like any other.
  • The approval is kept with the task, under Activity and Q&A: the answer, who gave it and when.

Next​

Next lesson: Organizing your tasks. Previous: How to get exactly what you want.

Related: Read a task's result · How tasks work · Audit.