Rejections & rework

When a reviewer or approver rejects a Level 2 RCA, it goes back to the owner for rework. This page covers what happens on a rejection and how the owner gets the RCA back on track.

What a rejection does

A rejection at any review stage — Initial Review, Formal Approval, or Final Review — sends the RCA back to Investigation with the reviewer's comments left open. The owner has to address those comments before the RCA can go forward again.

Step 1 — Read the comments

Reviewers attach comments to the specific parts of the RCA that need work (for example, on the root cause or the proposed solution). A final-review rejection includes a general comment explaining the reviewer's rationale.

Open the comments panel to see every comment that needs addressing.

Step 2 — Address and resolve each comment

For each comment, the owner:

1. Makes the change the comment asks for (updating the relevant part of the RCA).
2. Marks the comment as resolved.

Every rejection comment must be resolved before you can resubmit. The RCA won't let you resubmit while any comment is still open.

Step 3 — Resubmit

Once all comments are resolved, the owner selects Resubmit for approval. This starts a new approval round: the RCA goes back through the review chain from the beginning, and the previous round's approvals and comments become history (you can still look them up by round).

What's next

• The RCA re-enters the approval chain from Initial Review.

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to do
Resubmit for approval is disabled	Not all rejection comments are resolved yet. Open the comments panel and resolve each one.
You resolved the comments but the RCA still shows as rejected	Make sure you selected Resubmit for approval after resolving — resolving alone doesn't resend it.
You want to see a previous reviewer's comments after resubmitting	Earlier rounds are kept as history — look them up by approval round.