Reviews reference
The whole module at a glance — and straight answers to the questions that only come up at the worst moment.
Roles
| Role | Can |
|---|---|
| Submitter | Anyone on the team — there's no separate create-a-review permission. Edits the review, manages reviewers and items, cancels, reopens, and mints record links. |
| Reviewer | Decides. Deciding is a role, not a permission — you decide because you were added as a reviewer. |
| Observer | Looks and comments, never decides. Sharing a review with someone quietly adds them here. |
| Reviews admin | With Manage all reviews, acts like the submitter on any review; View all reviews reveals reviews you're not on. |
Statuses
| Thing | States |
|---|---|
| Review | Draft → In review → Approved · Changes requested · Rejected · Cancelled. It closes itself the moment the approval rule is met — or immediately on one reject or change request. |
| Item | Undecided → its verdict (per-item mode). Approved items stay settled through later rounds. |
Practical limits
| Surface | Ceiling |
|---|---|
| Items per review | 200 — creating with more is refused; uploading past the cap skips the extras and says so |
| Reviewers / observers | 25 / 50 — sharing a full review still delivers the notification; only the observer seat quietly doesn't open |
| Due date | Up to 90 days out, or none at all |
| Recently-closed lane | Shows the last 14 days; older closed reviews open via their direct link |
| Record export | Up to 2,000 decision rows; past that it truncates and says exactly where it cut |
Notifications
| Moment | Who hears |
|---|---|
| Review submitted or reopened | The reviewers — a reviewer added mid-review gets an inbox card, not a bell |
| A decision lands | The submitter only, on a reviewer's first cast of the round — and only when it doesn't close the review |
| A comment lands | The review's participants; notes attached to decisions stay quiet |
| Deadline nears | 24 hours before, only the reviewers who still owe a decision |
| The review closes | Everyone involved, whatever the outcome |
What happens when… people come and go
| When… | What happens |
|---|---|
| The person who started the review leaves the company | Nothing is stuck. Anyone with Manage all reviews manages it exactly like the submitter — edit, add reviewers, cancel, reopen. The original name stays on the record. |
| A reviewer is deactivated before deciding | They lose access immediately, but their reviewer seat stays — an everyone-must-approve review keeps waiting. Remove them from the roster and the review re-evaluates at once; it can close on the spot. |
| You remove a reviewer who already decided | Their decision stays in the record permanently — removal only closes their seat. They lose access to the review page unless they submitted it or are a reviews admin. |
| A reviewer deletes their whole account | Their approval stays valid. The exported record marks them as deleted; in the app the name simply stops resolving. |
| A reviewer loses access to the folder the file lives in | They can still open the review and decide — being a reviewer governs that. The file itself won't render for them, because file permissions are always checked as of now. |
What happens when… time passes
| When… | What happens |
|---|---|
| The deadline passes and nobody decided | The review closes itself as changes requested — it didn't get sign-off in time. Everyone gets the closed notification; in per-item reviews, unvoted items stay verdict-less and the record shows that absence. |
| There's no due date and everyone forgot | It stays open indefinitely — nothing closes a review without a deadline except people: deciding, cancelling, or removing the last undecided reviewer. |
| You push the deadline out at the last minute | The old auto-close re-checks the moment it fires and does nothing — only the new deadline counts. |
| You set a deadline less than 24 hours away | No reminder is sent — there's no 24-hours-before left to send it in. |
What happens when… files change or disappear
| When… | What happens |
|---|---|
| Someone uploads a new version mid-review | Reviewers keep seeing the round's pinned version — new uploads aren't blocked; they're what the next round reviews. |
| Someone tries to rename, move, or trash a file that's under review | Refused while the review runs — the lock lifts when the review closes. |
| Someone trashes the whole folder the items live in | That's allowed on purpose. The affected items are marked unavailable instead of vanishing, and the review shows a banner naming the loss. |
| You restore the items from Trash | They come straight back — availability is recalculated on every load. Trash keeps items until someone removes them; once purged, the entry stays marked as removed forever. |
| You remove an item from the review halfway through | The record keeps it — named as it was at that moment, with the decisions cast on it and a Removed date. |
What happens when… the record leaves the building
| When… | What happens |
|---|---|
| You try to download the record of a running review | Refused — records exist only once a review is closed, in any of its four outcomes, cancelled included. |
| You reopen a review whose record link a client already has | The link goes dormant with an honest message; it starts working again by itself when the review closes again. The dormant page deliberately shows no title. |
| The review ran many rounds | The record holds up to 2,000 decision rows and always says when it truncated — the JSON carries the true total, the CSV a trailing note. |
| You download in another language | The review's title and each item's name come out in that language where one exists; the column words stay English so tools can rely on them. |
What happens when… AI agents are involved
| When… | What happens |
|---|---|
| An agent tries to approve | It can — only if its key carries the deciding scope and the agent sits on the review as a reviewer. Otherwise the cast is refused. |
| You check who was behind an agent's decision | A decision cast by an agent acting for a person records that person alongside the agent. A fully autonomous agent's decision records the agent alone. |
| An agent wants to watch a review live | It can't — the live channels are people-only. Agents ask again instead of listening in. |
Where things land
| Thing | Where |
|---|---|
| Files uploaded straight into a review | The review's own folder in Drive, under the review inbox — created on first upload |
| The review itself | Its own web address you can paste to any colleague who has access |
| Your record links | Beside your other share links, reviewable and revocable in one place |
| Whether Reviews is on your plan | Depends on your plan — the decision record download, deliberately, is on every plan |