Delegation

01In a nutshell #sec_85e97e1e

Delegation allows one person to make review decisions on behalf of another — and requires that this transfer of authority be motivated, time-bound, attributed and retained.

02The problem #sec_01a1f53d

A recertification campaign is addressed to individuals. But people go on vacation, change jobs, are on leave, or inherit a portfolio they don't know. Without a delegation mechanism, there are only three options, all bad: the campaign gets stuck on a few absentees, someone certifies en masse without looking, or people lend each other passwords.

Delegation is therefore essential. But delegation shifts something heavier than a task: it shifts accountability . After the fact, a review decision is only valid if one can answer the question "who decided, and in what capacity?". A decision made by someone who was neither the resource owner nor its declared delegate is a baseless decision.

This is where the risk differs from that of [exclusion](REVIEWIT_Feature_Sanctuaire_v1.0.md). The Sanctuary makes a hole in the control coverage: there are missing lines. Delegation, on the other hand, makes no hole — coverage remains at 100%, everything is decided, everything is green. What degrades is the legitimacy of these decisions. It is a more discreet risk, and therefore more tenacious.

03The approach #sec_ad2c5efc

A delegation is not an administrative shortcut. It is an act of representation, and it must be proven.

Three principles follow from this, deliberately proportionate: a four-day co-assignment during vacations should not cost the same as a six-month transfer of responsibility.

1. A delegation is not deleted — it is revoked. This was the most serious flaw of the previous version: deleting a delegation erased the legitimacy of the decisions already made in its name. "Bob certified on behalf of Alice" became inexplicable, therefore suspect, even though everything had gone correctly. Now each delegation is a cycle: opened when set up, closed when revoked, never erased.

2. A delegation has a term. The notion of "permanent" delegation has been removed from the product. A delegation without a due date is never reviewed: it outlives the reason that created it, often by several years. And a permanent delegation in transfer mode is not a delegation at all — it is a change of responsibility that has not been recorded in the repository, and therefore escapes any property review. The duration is capped at 12 months, explicitly renewable.

3. The requirement follows the commitment. The reason is always requested. Written justification becomes mandatory as soon as the act becomes serious: any transfer of responsibility, or any duration exceeding 30 days . Below that, it remains optional — requiring a dissertation for a one-week absence would only produce padding, which devalues all other justifications.

04How it works #sec_375add0f

Two modes, two levels of commitment

The choice is not made from a drop-down list but on two cards that state the consequence. It is the difference between "I am getting help" and "I no longer decide".

Setting up

A panel guides the input: scope, mode, delegator, delegate(s), period, reason, justification. The validation button remains inactive until everything is consistent.

Available reasons: absence / vacation · workload · expertise · change of organization · other.

Duration: 15 days, 30 days, 3 months or free dates, up to a limit of 12 months.

Four checks are executed before recording: self-delegation, delegation cycle (A → B → … → A), exact duplicate, and overlapping of contradictory modes on the same pair. They are blocking, because these are configurations from which no audit reading can emerge unscathed.

Revoking

Revocation requires its own reason — period ended, replaced, input error, other — and closes the cycle. The line remains in the database, viewable in the History tab. Deletion does not exist.

The due date, the main signal of the screen

As with exclusions, the list of active delegations is organized around a single question: which one should have already stopped?

• 🔴 Overdue — the line is tinted, and yet the delegation remains active.
• 🟠 Under 15 days — to be renewed or allowed to expire.
• 🟢 Ongoing — nothing to do.
• ⚪ No end date — only for lines prior to this rule; impossible to create today.

05Configuration anomalies #sec_ccabf705

A banner reports, without ever blocking, four situations that were previously not signaled:

None of these situations is illegitimate in itself: a mutual backup duo is a common practice, and a chain may reflect an ongoing reorganization. The product does not judge — it makes visible what, until now, was not, and leaves the interpretation to those entitled to it.

06The delegation file #sec_26e53baf

Each delegator → delegate relationship opens a file: all its cycles in order, with for each one the reason, the justification quoted as is, the author, the dates, and the circumstances of the revocation.

The file mainly carries the number of review decisions actually made during each cycle. This is the figure that transforms a configuration line into a fact: it says what the delegation has produced, and it is the reason why it is never erased. A cycle with zero decisions is a formality; a cycle with four hundred decisions is a real transfer of authority, which must remain documented long after it has ended.

The History tab also correlates each closed cycle with the campaigns that took place during its duration . The same reading as for exclusions then becomes possible: a delegation opened shortly before the launch of a campaign and revoked shortly after its closure is seen — and read.

07What the auditor finds #sec_1aa1becb

The screen is opened to them in read-only mode: they consult and export, they do not implement or revoke anything.

They find, without having to ask: who can decide on behalf of whom and until when, the reason and justification for each delegation in the words of its author, expired delegations still active, cross or chain configurations, the complete history of cycles with their motivated revocations, and the volume of decisions made under each.

The export systematically includes the reason and justification, and, on the history, the circumstances of the revocation. An export of delegations without the why would have no probative value.

08Proper use #sec_67409b78

What Delegation is made for: planned absences, peaks in workload on a campaign, expertise carried by someone else for the duration of a project, coverage during a reorganization.

What it is not made for: permanently bypassing an unavailable owner — it is the reference framework that needs to be corrected; having someone certify who does not have knowledge of the scope; or establishing a permanent chain that distances the decision from the one who is responsible for it.

These uses are not technically blocked. They are visible, dated, and attributed — and this is deliberate.

09To remember #sec_d171e500

The Sanctuary answers the question “what has escaped control?” Delegation answers a more difficult question: “do these decisions mean anything?”

A campaign can show 100% coverage and prove nothing, if no one can establish on what basis each decision was made. By making each delegation motivated, bounded, attributed, indelible, and linked to the decisions it has enabled, the product allows to affirm not only that everything has been reviewed, but also by whom, on what basis, and on what title.