BF Workbench is a restricted scientific system. Records are available only to registered, authorised accounts.

Review, signing and retention

The review lifecycle, approving or returning, uploading the signed copy, and how long statements are kept.

ReferenceHow-to

A submitted statement waits for one named reviewer to approve or return it. Once approved it can be printed, signed and filed back on the record as a scanned copy. This page covers the lifecycle, who can review, what approval and rejection do, uploading the signed copy, and the retention rule to plan around: approved statements are deleted 30 days after they were created.

The lifecycle

Status Meaning Who moves it on
Pending review Submitted, with a PENDING REVIEW watermark, waiting for the reviewer Reviewer approves or rejects; preparer cancels; the platform cancels it after 7 days
Reviewed Approved. The PDF is rebuilt without a watermark; Word download and signed-copy upload become available Preparer uploads the signed copy (status stays Reviewed, with an Executed badge)
Rejected Returned with a reason Preparer generates a replacement
Cancelled Withdrawn by the preparer, or expired unreviewed after 7 days Final
Superseded A replacement was generated after rejection Final

Only Pending review and Reviewed statements count as active, and a record may have one active statement per type.

Who can review

A reviewer must hold an active account, be flagged as a deponent and not be the statement's deponent. That is the only rule: the preparer may choose themselves as reviewer, so one person can prepare and approve a statement sworn by someone else. The platform does not enforce independent review. If your procedures require it, the preparer must choose someone else; nothing on the platform will catch a lapse.

Reviewers are not notified. Pending statements appear under To Review in the Statements card on the HQ page, oldest first, with a count badge on the tab.

Approve or return a statement

  1. In To Review, open the statement's PDF with the eye icon and read it. It carries the PENDING REVIEW watermark.
  2. Choose Review. The Review Statement form asks for a decision.
  3. To approve, choose Approve, tick the confirmation that you have reviewed the statement and find it acceptable for signing, and optionally add feedback.
  4. To return it, choose Reject and give a reason. The reason is required.
  5. Submit decision.

On approval the PDF is rebuilt from the saved snapshot with no watermark and a footer naming you and the date. On rejection the preparer sees your feedback through the message icon on their row in My Statements and can start a replacement with the refresh icon. The replacement is a new statement with its own reference; the rejected one becomes Superseded, and its values are not carried over, so the form is filled in again.

Once the statement is Reviewed:

  1. Open the PDF (eye icon) or download the Word copy (Word icon) from My Statements. The Word file is built from the same snapshot with the same header and footer and is intended for the signing step.
  2. Print it and have it signed according to your institution's procedure.
  3. Scan the signed statement as a PDF and choose the upload icon on the row. An upload window titled "File signed statement STMT-…" opens, locked to the statement's document category and to this record.
  4. Select the PDF and upload it.

The scan is stored as a document on the record, like any other evidence file (see Evidence files), and the row gains an Executed badge with the filing date. Only the preparer or a Super User can file it, and only one signed copy can be uploaded per statement.

The stored PDF and the Word copy can be opened by the preparer, the reviewer, the deponent (if they have an account) and Super Users. Status chips on the record are visible to everyone, but the link only opens for those people.

Retention

A nightly task applies two rules:

  • A statement still Pending review 7 days after it was created is cancelled.
  • A statement in any finished state (Reviewed, Rejected, Cancelled or Superseded) is deleted 30 days after it was created. The stored PDF, the Word copy and the snapshot go with it. A signed scan already filed on the record stays.

The 30 days run from creation, not approval, whether or not a signed copy was uploaded. An approved statement nobody downloaded is gone after 30 days, and a new statement of the same type can then be raised for the record. Download and file the signed copy, and keep your own copy of the approved PDF, within that window.

Good to know

Limit: There is no audit trail of statement history. The platform keeps only the current statement row; once it is deleted there is no record on the platform that it existed, who reviewed it or what it said. Your institution's own filing is the record of the statement.

Good to know: The PENDING REVIEW PDF footer already names the chosen reviewer as "Reviewed by" before any review has happened. Only the un-watermarked PDF produced on approval represents an approved statement.