Every asset in dScribe can have one or more owners — individual users or teams responsible for maintaining its documentation.
Assigning owners does two key things:
It gives anyone using the asset a clear point of contact for questions.
It activates the suggestions workflow, so all proposed edits are sent to the owners for approval before they take effect.
The result: documentation stays accountable. Changes don't happen silently, and there's always someone to escalate to.
Assigning ownership
On any asset's detail page, click the Owner field in the header. A panel opens where you can search for and select users or teams.
Good to know: When you assign an owner, all subsequent changes to the asset are routed to that owner (or any member of the team) for approval before they take effect. This applies to documentation, properties, relations, and any other editable field.
You can assign multiple owners. If you assign a team, any single member of that team can act on the team's behalf for approvals — one approval is enough to apply a suggestion. The same applies when multiple individual owners are assigned: any one of them can approve.
The suggestions workflow
When an asset has at least one owner, edits made by anyone other than an owner are captured as suggestions instead of being applied immediately. Each suggestion is routed to the owner(s) for review.
Owners themselves don't go through the suggestions workflow on assets they own — their edits are applied directly. The workflow only kicks in for users who aren't an owner of the asset they're editing.
Submitting a suggestion
If you have edit permissions on an asset that has owners assigned:
Open the asset and make your changes as usual.
When you save, the change is captured as a suggestion.
The owner is notified.
You can track the status of your suggestions under Home > Suggestions > My suggestions.
Note from the dScribe developers
Currently, users need edit permissions on an asset to submit suggestions. This requirement may be relaxed in the future, so any user can suggest edits on assets that have assigned owners.
We're listening: let us know what your preferences are via the in-app chat.
Reviewing suggestions (as an owner)
When you own assets with pending suggestions, they surface in two places:
The "Suggestions" overview on your homepage, showing all suggestions waiting for your approval:
A banner on the asset itself that says "You have N suggestion(s) awaiting your approval" with a direct link to review.
For each pending suggestion you can:
Approve — the change is applied to the asset.
Reject — the change is discarded.
The user who suggested the edit will be notified with your decision.
How this fits with permissions and validation
The ownership and suggestions mechanism sits alongside another control in dScribe: access policies. They serve different purposes and don't override each other.
Access policies define edit permissions, for example whether users can edit validated assets. Being an owner doesn't automatically grant the ability edit — even owners need edit permissions.
In other words: owners are the editorial accountability layer. They aren't a substitute for permissions and they don't unlock actions they're not otherwise allowed to perform.
For more on permissions and access configuration, see Organization.
Owners and access requests
Owners can also be made responsible for approving access requests when a user requests access to an asset they don't currently have permission to view.
See &&Access requests for the full access approval flow.
Where to go next
→ &&Access requests — how owners can play a role in access request workflows
→ Organization — set up the users and teams that can be assigned as owners
Have a question or can't find what you're looking for? Use the chat icon inside the catalog to reach the dScribe support team.