Create

When a policy is created, its status is Draft and the policy is assigned version number 1. A child policy is created with version number 1. A parent may have a higher version number than a child.

Review

When a policy is reviewed, the policy reviewer comments are specific to the current policy and the policy version. The reviewers are not allowed to edit their comments from the previous versions of the policy.

Publish

When a policy is published, it is published with the current version number.

Unpublish

When a published policy is recalled or saved to update, the policy is then unpublished. When an unpublished policy is saved, the saved policy is marked as Draft and the version automatically increments by 1. For example, if version 2 of a policy is unpublished, the new version number is 3.

Awareness and clarification

When a user accepts, declines, or asks for a clarification, the task is specific to the current version.

Exceptions

An exception to a policy is not specific to the version. For example, if an exception is approved for version 1 of a policy, then the same exception holds for version 2. The exception remains in place as long as the exception has not expired.