Review a gate

A gate review is the formal decision point in the proposal pipeline. There are three gates, Proposal Review, Business Case Review, and Plan Review, and each one asks reviewers to score the proposal against that gate’s evaluation criteria and record a decision.

Find your pending reviews

When a proposal enters a gate you are designated for, you get a notification and the Governance item in the sidebar shows a badge with your pending count. On the Governance page, the My Approvals quick view filters the pipeline down to proposals waiting on your decision.

Conduct the review

1. Open the proposal. At a review gate you will see Conduct Gate Review. (On a freshly Submitted proposal, reviewers see Start Gate Review instead, which moves it into Proposal Review first; a confirmation explains the move because it cannot be undone casually.)

2. Score each evaluation criterion. Criteria come in several shapes: point scores, yes/no checks, 1 to 5 ratings, dropdowns with point values, and free-text fields for concerns. The weighted total updates live as you score and lands on a 0 to 100 scale; text criteria are commentary only and never affect the number.

3. Add comments, then choose a decision: Approve, Reject, or More Info when you need answers before deciding.

4. Submit. You get one review per gate; after submitting, the button is replaced by a Review Submitted marker.

How the outcome is decided

When the gate has a designated reviewer panel, every panel member gets a say and quorum decides:

• Any rejection rejects the proposal immediately.
• All approvals advance it to the next stage.
• Anything in between leaves the proposal waiting at the gate. Note that a More Info decision fills that reviewer’s seat without approving it, and a filled seat cannot be cleared afterwards, so it blocks the approve path for good, see the recusal FAQ below.

When no panel is configured for the gate, your single decision is authoritative: approve advances, reject rejects. Panel setup is covered in Set up gate reviewers for proposals.

Note

Owners and admins can always submit a gate decision, even at a gate with a designated panel. When the proposal already carries panel seats, their decision is recorded for the audit trail only, it doesn’t count toward quorum or unblock the gate. A Portfolio Manager who is not on the panel can’t submit at all. To actually unblock a stuck gate, remove the unresponsive reviewer from the panel instead, see Set up gate reviewers.

What happens on approval

Passing a gate advances the proposal to its next working stage, and passing Plan Review moves it to Approved. Depending on your organization’s configured project creation gate, an approval can also create the delivery project automatically, see From proposal to governed project. The submitter and the sponsor are notified of every gate decision either way.

Best practices

1. Score against the criteria, not the proposer. Gate reviews exist to make decisions auditable. If a reviewer’s score doesn’t connect to a criterion, it’s not a review. It’s an opinion. Use the comments to explain the score, not to bypass it.
2. Use More Info aggressively in early gates, sparingly in later ones. Gate 1 (Proposal Review) is where “we need to understand this better” is healthy feedback; Gate 3 (Plan Review) is where it usually signals the proposal isn’t ready for approval. The nature of the questions changes; so should your patience.
3. Block a gate review session on your calendar. Reviewing 5 proposals in 5 minutes between meetings leads to rubber-stamping. A focused 30-60 minute block for the week’s reviews produces better decisions and clearer comments.
4. Comment on what would change your decision. A reject without “here’s what would make this approvable” is just a wall. The proposer needs to know if they should iterate or abandon. Write the sentence that tells them.
5. Defer to domain expertise on the panel. Multi- reviewer panels exist because no single reviewer knows everything. If Finance has flagged a concern on the Business Case Review, your Technology approval doesn’t override theirs. It adds a parallel signal. Quorum (any reject blocks) respects this.

Troubleshooting / common pitfalls

• The Conduct Gate Review button isn’t there. Three causes: (a) you already reviewed this gate (one per reviewer per gate); (b) you’re not on the designated panel; (c) you don’t have the org.governance.review permission. Designated reviewers see the button at any gate they’re designated for; org-wide reviewers see it for any proposal at a gate without a panel.
• The weighted score doesn’t match my mental math. Open Configure evaluation criteria to see each criterion’s weight. The score is a weighted sum on a 0-100 scale; criteria with small weights barely move the number. If the score still feels off, raise the question with the PMO. Criteria weights are a policy decision.
• I see the proposal but can’t read all of it. The proposal owner controls visibility of certain fields; if a field is blank but the proposer left a comment, that’s intentional. Use a More Info decision to request clarification.
• A panel-gated proposal isn’t advancing despite approvals. The quorum requires ALL designated reviewers to approve. Check the gate’s review list. One or more reviewers may still be pending.
• I have an “Owner” override I don’t want to use. Organization Owners and Admins can record a gate decision even when a designated panel exists. Once the proposal is carrying panel seats, that decision only adds to the audit trail; it doesn’t count toward quorum or advance the gate on its own. To actually move a stuck gate, remove the unresponsive reviewer from the panel instead; that cancels their pending approval and quorum is recomputed.

How this combines with other features

• Gate review + Evaluation criteria. Criteria define what each gate scores. Tuning criteria (weights, options) tunes how reviews work without changing the process. See Configure evaluation criteria.
• Gate review + Designated reviewers. Panels let you assign different reviewer sets per gate (e.g. Finance for Business Case, Tech for Plan Review). The quorum rule ensures everyone weighs in. See Set up gate reviewers.
• Gate review + AI assistant. Ask the assistant “summarize the rejected proposals from last quarter” or “show me gates where I’m pending”. It reads the same data the UI does. See Chat with Onplana AI.
• Gate review + Audit logs. Every gate decision with reviewer, score, comment, and timestamp goes to the audit log (irreversible, exportable for compliance audits). See Read audit logs.

Coming from another tool

Tool	Mapping
MS Project Online Workflow Approval	Direct concept; same stage-gate decision pattern
ServiceNow Workflow approval	Similar; ServiceNow tasks ≈ Onplana proposals at gate
Spreadsheet-tracked approvals	Onplana replaces this with auditable in-app reviews
Smartsheet Approvals	Direct mapping for the score-and-decide flow
Jira workflow approval transitions	Closest analog; Jira lacks the multi-reviewer quorum model

FAQs

Can I change my decision after submitting? No, one review per reviewer per gate. If the proposal is rejected and resubmitted later, that is a fresh review cycle.

What does More Info actually do? It records your comments and concerns without approving or rejecting. At a panel gate the proposal simply keeps waiting; the submitter sees your feedback and can respond before the rest of the panel decides.

Where do the scoring criteria come from? Each gate has its own weighted scorecard, either your organization’s custom set or the built-in defaults. Admins manage them as described in Configure evaluation criteria.

Do I have to score every criterion? Nothing is enforced as required, but the dialog submits the whole scorecard: any criterion you leave untouched is sent as 0 and still counts in the weighted total, so skipping one lowers the score rather than excluding it. Score every criterion that applies and use the comment box to explain the ones that do not. Text criteria are commentary only and never affect the number.

Can a panel reviewer recuse themselves? Not by submitting a decision, a More Info leaves their seat marked Needs More Info, which still counts toward the panel but can never count as an approval, so it blocks the gate’s approve path indefinitely rather than clearing their seat. To recuse someone properly, remove them from that gate’s panel before they record any decision, see Set up gate reviewers. Once a decision is recorded, removal no longer undoes it.

Can two panel reviewers split on a More Info? Yes, More Info is a non-decision. The gate doesn’t advance just because everyone has submitted, it advances only once every active panel seat is Approved. ANY Reject still rejects immediately.

Are gate reviews time-limited? Not by default, a proposal can sit at a gate indefinitely. Some organizations add a workflow automation that nudges reviewers after a threshold (e.g. 7 days pending). See Build a workflow.

Related

• Understand the proposal pipeline, where gates sit in the 12-stage flow
• Set up gate reviewers, configure who reviews each gate
• Configure evaluation criteria, what they score against