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, including a More Info decision, leaves the proposal waiting at the gate until the remaining reviewers decide.

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 record a gate decision, even at a gate with a designated panel; this is the break-glass override. A Portfolio Manager who is not on the panel cannot, the panel configuration is binding.

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.

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.