A Process rarely stays exactly as you first built it. A Step name needs fixing, Instructions need more detail, or a Step has to be added — often after the Process has been assigned and people have already begun working in it.
You can keep editing an assigned Process. One rule protects the work already done: as soon as somebody starts working in a Step, that Step's settings are locked. Its name and Instructions can still be edited, and every other Step in the Process is unaffected.
Who Is This Article For?
Editing a Process is the Process Manager's job. An Account Owner or Super Admin chooses who the Process Managers are in Account Settings > Observations, and a Process Manager can be any User level. If you cannot edit a Process, ask your administrator whether you have been added as a Process Manager. For more on setting that up, see Observations Settings.
This article is for these User levels, when they have been named a Process Manager:
User
Admin
Super Admin
Account Owner
What "Locked" Means
Throughout this article, a locked Step is one that somebody has already started working in — its status has moved from Not Started to In Progress. Locked means two things, and nothing more:
Its settings cannot be changed.
It cannot be deleted.
Everything else stays available. You can still rename a locked Step, rewrite its Instructions, and edit every other Step in the Process. Locking applies to one Step at a time — it never freezes the whole Process.
These stay editable, whatever state your Steps are in:
Process Title, Description, Category and Reporting Framework
A Step's Title
A Step's Instructions
Adding a new Step, even one that falls earlier in the Process than where Observers have reached
Reordering Steps with the up and down arrows
Removing a Step that nobody has started
These lock on any Step somebody has started:
Who the Step is assigned to — Observer, Observee or Both
Visible to Observer only
Signature Required and the signing order
Evidence on or off
Score — the Max Value, or Use Avg. PL
Form
Deleting the Step
The short version: you can always change what a Step says. What a Step does is fixed once work begins.
If you change a locked setting and select Save, Sibme refuses the change and shows "Work has already begun on this Process, so changes cannot be saved." Nothing is saved and the Step keeps its original settings.
Note: That message says "this Process," but only the one Step is affected. The rest of your Process is still open for editing, and you can still rename that Step and change its Instructions.
Note: A Step's Start and Due Dates are not locked by any of this. They belong to the assignment rather than to the Process, so you change them through the Assign button. See How to Assign Observers and Observees to a Process.
What Counts as a Started Step
A Step is started as soon as the Observer or Observee puts something into it. Its status changes from Not Started to In Progress, and its settings lock from that moment.
Opening a Step does not start it. An Observer or Observee can open a Step, read the Instructions and leave again without affecting it.
Entering anything does start it — a Score, a piece of Evidence, or an answer on a Form.
On a Step assigned to Both, it makes no difference who goes first. Once either the Observer or the Observee has entered something, the Step is locked for both of them.
A Step that has been marked Done or Done Late is locked for the same reason: work has been done in it.
Check Which Steps Have Started Before You Edit
Edit appears on every Step, and it should — the name and Instructions can be changed on any Step, started or not. What the Steps page does not show you is which Steps have been started, so nothing warns you in advance that a setting will be refused. Checking the statuses first tells you which Steps you can still change settings on.
A Step's settings lock as soon as any of the Observees assigned to the Process has started it, so check the whole column rather than a single row:
Select Observations in the menu bar, then open the As Observer tab.
Find your Process. Each row is an Observee and each column is a Step.
Read down the column for the Step you want to change. If every status dot in that column is still Not Started, you can change that Step's settings. If even one of them has started, the Step's settings are locked.
The legend above the table shows which dot is which. For more on reading the dashboard, see Your Observations Dashboard: Observer View.
Opening a Process for Editing
On the Published tab, find the Process and select ⋯ > Edit.
The Process details page opens first. Change the Title, Description, Category or Reporting Framework here if you need to.
Select Next to reach the Steps page, where you add, edit, reorder and remove Steps.
Select Save when you are finished. A "Changes to the Process successfully saved." message confirms it.
Text changes reach every assigned Observation straight away, so an Observee opening the Step afterwards sees the new name and Instructions.
Adding, Removing and Reordering Steps
Adding a Step
Select + Add Step on the Steps page, fill in the Step, and select Save. New Steps are added to every assigned Observation, even if the new Step sits earlier in the Process than where Observers have already reached. For what each field does, see How to Build Process Steps.
Removing a Step
Select ⋯ > Delete on the Step you want to remove. A "Step deleted successfully." message confirms it.
You can only remove a Step that nobody has started. On a started Step, Sibme refuses and shows "There are already Observers who have begun this Step, so it cannot be deleted."
Warning: Removing a Step takes effect immediately. There is no confirmation prompt, and selecting Cancel on the Steps page afterwards does not bring the Step back. Check that nobody needs the Step before you remove it.
Reordering Steps
Open the Step with ⋯ > Edit and use the up and down arrows to move it, then select Save. You can reorder a Step that has already been started, and the new order reaches every assigned Observation.
Each Step keeps its own Due Date when it moves, so reordering can leave the Due Dates out of sequence with the new order.
You can also use the Sub-Step button to turn a Main-Step into a Sub-Step, or the reverse. See How to Build Process Steps for how Main-Steps and Sub-Steps fit together.
If Your Process Is Shared with Child Accounts
If your Account has Child Accounts, an Unpublished Process can be shared down to them with the Share toggle in the Process header on the Steps page. Sharing does not change any of the rules above, because the copy a Child Account receives is read-only: its ⋯ menu offers only View Steps and Duplicate, with no Publish, Edit, Delete or Archive. A Child Account that wants to use the Process duplicates it and works from its own copy.
That means only work done in your own Account can lock a Step. Nothing a Child Account does with its duplicate affects the Process you shared.
Two things to know if you are sharing:
Share the Framework first. If the Process uses a Reporting Framework that has not been shared with Child Accounts, the Share toggle turns back off and a message names the Framework that is blocking it. Share that Framework, then share the Process.
Unsharing removes it from the Child Accounts. Turning Share off shows a Warning — "This Process is shared with the Child Accounts. If you unshare this Process it will not be available in the Child Accounts. Are you sure you want to unshare this Process?" — with Cancel and Ok. Processes already assigned from the shared copy stay where they are; the Child Accounts simply cannot start anything new from it.
What You Cannot Do Once a Process Is Assigned
Delete the Process. Once a Process has any assignment, Delete no longer appears in its ⋯ menu and Archive takes its place. Archiving keeps the Process and all of its work, and you can bring it back later. See Publishing and Managing Processes.