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Governance

Enterprise-grade governance with policy management, multi-stage approval workflows, environment promotion controls, and comprehensive audit logging.

Overview​

Governance in Strongly provides:

  • Policy Management: Define and enforce compliance policies
  • Multi-Stage Workflows: Create approval workflows with custom stages
  • Environment Promotion: Control resource promotion between environments
  • Solutions: Group related components for unified governance
  • Audit Logging: Comprehensive audit trail for compliance

How to Apply Policies to Resources​

Creating a Policy Instance​

  1. Navigate to resource (Application, Workflow, Model, etc.)
  2. Click Governance tab
  3. Click Apply Policy
  4. Select policy from dropdown (filtered by applicable resource type)
  5. Policy instance is created with status: "Not Started"

Completing Policy Stages​

  1. Open policy instance from Governance dashboard
  2. Complete each stage in order:
    • Fill out all required fields
    • Upload any required files or artifacts
    • Submit stage for approval
  3. Validators receive notification and can:
    • Approve: Stage moves to next validator or completes
    • Deny: Stage is rejected, requestor must revise
    • Conditional Approval: Approve with conditions that must be met
  4. Once all stages complete, policy status becomes "Completed"

Solutions: Grouping Components​

Solutions allow you to group related platform components (apps, workflows, data sources, models) for unified governance and compliance tracking.

How to Create a Solution​

  1. Go to Governance → Solutions
  2. Click Create Solution
  3. Enter solution details:
    • Name and Description
    • Business Context: Purpose, criticality (Critical/High/Medium/Low), data classification, regulatory scope
    • Ownership: Business owner, technical owner, team, cost center
  4. Compose solution using one of three methods:
    • Explicit Selection: Manually select specific apps, workflows, data sources, models by ID
    • Tag-Based Selection: Include/exclude components by tags (dynamic composition)
    • Query-Based Selection: Use MongoDB queries to filter components
  5. Set lifecycle:
    • Permanent: Always active
    • Temporal: Valid for specific date range
    • Event-Driven: Activated by trigger condition
  6. Choose evaluation mode:
    • Dynamic: Solution components update in real-time as resources change
    • Snapshot: Solution is frozen at creation time (for audits, releases)
  7. Click Create Solution

Environment Promotion Controls​

How to Promote Resources​

Promote applications, workflows, or models from Development → Staging → Production with policy enforcement:

  1. Open resource in Development or Staging environment
  2. Click Promote button
  3. Select target environment
  4. System checks compliance status:
    • All applicable policies must be completed
    • No critical violations can exist
    • Required approvals must be obtained
  5. If compliant: Promotion proceeds automatically
  6. If non-compliant: Blocking issues are listed, promotion is denied
  7. Admins can override with justification (logged in audit trail)

Viewing Audit Logs​

How to Access Audit Trail​

  1. Go to Governance → Audit Logs
  2. Filter by:
    • Entity Type: Policy, Policy Instance, Promotion, Override
    • Action: Created, Updated, Approved, Denied, Overridden
    • User: Who performed the action
    • Date Range: When action occurred
  3. Each log entry includes:
    • Previous state and new state (full change diff)
    • User ID, name, IP address, user agent
    • Timestamp and reason (if provided)
  4. Export logs for compliance reporting (CSV, JSON)

Governance Dashboard Metrics​

Monitor compliance health from the Governance dashboard:

Key Metrics​

  • Total active policies
  • Total policy instances
  • Pending approvals (requiring your action)
  • Compliance rate (% of resources with completed policies)
  • Average time to compliance (hours)

Violation Tracking​

  • Violations by category (Security, Compliance, Quality, Operational)
  • Top violated policies
  • Critical violations requiring immediate attention
  • Trends over time (improving or worsening)
Best Practice

Apply policies early in development. Enforce strict policies in Production, use warnings in Development to catch issues before promotion.