How to code review in BitBucket - what does "Finish Review" button do?

Question

I cant find any documentation on how code reviews work in BB.

Currently I only add comments, because I dont know what starting and finishing review buttons do.

E.g. if I am reviewing someones code, and hit "finish review", I assume this means close down the review and mark it as accepted, so I never hit this button, as I want the code author to make changes.  Then this leaves reviews "open", and I dont know what this does either. Does the code author see the review when its started, but not finished?  This is what I am guessing.  however, I dont know who has to hit "finish review" and when, is it me or the author?

What is the difference between just adding comments, and hitting start review, adding comments then hitting finish review?

Theodora Boudale · Answer

Hi @SH,

There are a few differences between simply adding comments in pull requests vs doing it via a review:

* When you start a review, any comments you make as part of this review will not be visible to other users until you hit the Finish review button. If you simply add a comment without a review, the comment will be immediately visible to other users.

* When you finish the review, you have the option of marking the pull request as approved (your approval is added to the PR), "Request changes", or "No status". You can perform the first two actions without a review, but when you start and finish a review, you need to select one of these three options.

* Another important change is that when you finish a review, a single email notification will be sent to your teammates with all the comments of the review. This has been a highly requested feature from some users, because it reduces noise in the email. For example, if you add five separate comments in a pull request without a review, your colleagues will receive five separate emails. If you submit these five comments as part of a review, your colleagues will get a single email notification for that review.

You can find some of the info I mentioned in the following community article:

* https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Bitbucket-articles/New-in-pull-requests-Batched-comments/ba-p/2534448

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

Kind regards,
Theodora

Kuğbe · Answer

Yes, that's correct! The "Start Review" and "Finish Review" actions help structure the review process, but they are not mandatory. You can choose to add comments directly without explicitly starting or finishing a review. All depends to your team's workflow structure/process. This flexibility allows reviewers to provide feedback in a way that suits their workflow best.

If you have any more questions or need further clarification, feel free to ask!

SH_h28wgp · Answer

Great, so start and end review are entirely optional - you could just add comments.