Introduction
When questions about a specific change that is now running on a Production environment arise, on the lines of how, when and who approved it, the Receipt is the answer. It is the project’s permanent history, built up while the work happens rather than assembled afterwards from memory.
This article explains what is recorded, when the record is sealed and who keeps the evidence.
What is recorded
Material events are recorded as the project progresses. That includes the documents attached to the project, the generation of the design documents and the solution design contents, the approvals given at the required gates and the promotion itself, each with the person responsible and the time it happened. Because the record is written as the work progresses, the order of events is visible in one place instead of being spread across mailboxes, tickets and meeting notes.
The receipt page also offers a snapshot, which gives a point in time view of the project, and print actions, which produce the evidence pack you can hand to an auditor or a customer.
When the record is sealed
Promotion is allowed only when the required gates are green and the entitlement is valid. When promotion completes, the project record is sealed and the receipt stands as the evidence of what was designed, tested, approved and released. That sealed record is the point of reference for any later questions about the changes made.
The evidence belongs with the customer
The receipt is the customer’s asset, not a Bluefort report about the customer. It stays with the project in the environment, and the evidence pack produced from it can be filed alongside the customer’s own change and release documentation. If governance requires proof that a change was designed, tested and approved before it reached Production, that proof is already there and does not have to be reconstructed.