Apply the Four-Eyes principle to Imports

The standard WOODY.IO workflow explicitly supports an optional four-eye approval step between validation and persistence.

Operationally, this is represented by Import lifecycle states such as Waiting for approval, Approved, and Declined.

Why to use it?

Four-eyes approval is most useful when:

• The dataset is business-critical or regulated
• Manual edits were made during the Import
• Warnings or clearance-type issues must be reviewed before persisting

WOODY.IO supports this by combining:

• Validation via Business Rules with severity levels

• An Approval stage in the Import lifecycle
• Roles that include an Approver role for approve/reject rights

Recommended Setup

Separate roles: Contributor vs Approver

Use different people for preparing an Import and approving it. WOODY.IO provides default roles including:

• Contributor (can import and maintain data)
• Approver (can approve or reject imports)

• Data Stewart (can manage Metamodels/connections/lookups and trigger persist)

Best practice:

• Assign most users who prepare imports to Contributor
• Assign a small set of reviewers to Approver

• Keep Metamodel/connection management with Data Stewart or Owner

Use Business Rule severities to control approval behavior

WOODY.IO Business Rules have four severity grades with specific governance implications:

• Fatal: blocks finalization/persist (cannot be finalized while present)
• Warning: requires a Comment for an Import to be approved

• Clearance: pauses the process until a Clearance Statement is uploaded

Best practice mapping:

• Use Fatal for hard data-quality constraints
• Use Warning for “allowed with justification”
• Use Clearance for “must provide evidence/approval document”

Require explicit clearance for specific entities when needed

At entity level, WOODY.IO supports Needs Clearance, which “determines whether an Import requires a Clearance Statement for it to proceed to the Approval stage.”

Best practice:

• Enable Needs Clearance for entities that are high risk (master data, finance, pricing, access control lists)

How the four-eyes flow should run

1. Prepare and validate (Contributor)
   • Create Import, adjust data as needed, then click Validate to run the defined rules. 
2. Review issues
   • If Warnings exist, add the required Comments (WOODY.IO requires this for approval with warnings).
   • If Clearance is required, upload the Clearance Statement (otherwise the process is halted).
3. Approval decision (Approver)
   • Approver reviews the Import in the Approval stage and either Approves or Declines.
4. Persist (only after approval)
   • Persist is executed via Finish, which persists the data to the destination and completes the process.

Notifications and Audibility (optional/recommended)

Send notifications to the right people when the import reaches key approval steps, such as Waiting for approval, Approved, or Declined. See the article Notifications - How to Configure and When? for more details.

Use Logs as your audit trail. WOODY.IO Logs capture system events and user actions during an import and are important for auditing and compliance.

Best practice:

• Require approvers to leave a short comment explaining approve/decline
• Export logs when needed for audit evidence

If you have any further questions, please feel free to Contact Us.