Lifecycle management is a feature that helps you manage an asset throughout its entire lifecycle, from creation to archive. It allows you to better monitor an asset's development, implementation, and usage, helping you to ensure compliance and safety.
In this topic
Asset statuses as a representation of lifecycle stages
All assets are created with a certain asset status, for example Candidate, which indicates the condition of the asset. By enabling the Lifecycle management feature, you're effectively opting to use asset statuses to both:
- Represent the lifecycle stages of an asset.
- Reflect the lifecycle stage in which the asset exists at any point in time.
With the help of various tools and features, such as the Lifecycle tracker widget and lifecycle activities, you determine and manually control the lifecycle stage of an asset, and the status of the asset is automatically updated to match.
Enabling the Lifecycle management feature
The Enable lifecycle management setting is in the Statuses tab of the global assignment of some asset types. For some asset types, such as AI Model (in preview) and AI Use Case, the option is selected by default.
Note This feature is in preview for the AI Model asset type. To benefit from the Lifecycle Management feature for AI Model assets, you have to enable Model Registry. For guidance on how to do so, go to Set up AI Governance.
If the Enable lifecycle management option is cleared (disabled):
- The asset statuses included in the Statuses tab are merely a list of valid statuses for assets of this type. There is no core path and other statuses. The first asset status in the list, however, still determines the status of all newly created assets of this type.
- The Lifecycle tracker widget is not included on the relevant asset pages.
Configuring lifecycle stages
When configuring the lifecycle stages, there are two sections to consider: Core Path and Other Statuses.
For step-by-step instructions on how to configure lifecycle stages, go to Configure the lifecycle stages of AI Governance assets.
Core path
Asset statuses included in the Core Path section represent the active lifecycle stages of an asset. The first asset status listed in the core path — Ideation, in the following example image — determines the initial status of all newly created assets of this type.
The asset statuses included in the core path — Ideation, Development, and Monitoring, in this example — are reflected on some product pages, for example on the AI Governance Overview page, and in the Lifecycle tracker widget.
The following image shows the default core path statuses of the AI Use Case asset type, as reflected in the Lifecycle tracker on an asset page.
The following image shows the default core statuses of the AI Model asset type, as reflected in the Model Analytics widget that is included on the AI Governance Model Registry page.
Other statuses
Asset statuses included in the Other Statuses section represent the inactive lifecycle stages of an asset. For the AI Use Case asset type, the default statuses are Rejected and Archived. They are considered part of the asset lifecycle, but they are not reflected in the Lifecycle tracker or in the Model Analytics widget (as included on the Model Registry page).
Like for all assets, regardless of type or status, these statuses are shown below the asset name on asset pages, and in asset views that include the Status attribute type.
Configuring lifecycle activities in the global assignment
For more information, including required permissions, go to:
Manually adding lifecycle activities to the Lifecycle tracker
In addition to configuring lifecycle activities in the global assignment, you can also manually add assessment types, decisions, and sign-off activities to the Lifecycle tracker.
For more information, including required permissions, go to Add lifecycle activities to the Lifecycle tracker.
Advancing an asset through the lifecycle
Ideally after all activities in the Lifecycle tracker have been completed, you can click Move to <stage>, to advance to the next lifecycle stage. The lifecycle stages that are configured in the asset status core path are reflected in the Move to <stage> button and the drop-down list.
If necessary, you can use the Move to <stage> button to revert to a previous lifecycle stage. The status of the asset is updated to match.
When you advance an asset to the next lifecycle stage, any assessments that have not been completed are carried over to that stage.
Tip Click the various stages in the Stage Stepper to view the lifecycle activities that were completed in previous stages and those that require attention in advanced stages, without advancing or reverting the asset to another lifecycle stage.
Decision activities
Decisions are another type of lifecycle activity that are shown in the Lifecycle tracker.
Decision records
Decision records are an activity type that allows you to capture any pertinent information regarding the decisions you and other stakeholders make about the AI use case.You can add as many decision records as you want. They are created with the status Completed, and the status doesn't evolve.
Decision records are not carried forward when an asset advances to the next lifecycle stage.
Decision gates
Decision gates are triggered when you use the Move to <stage> button in the Lifecycle tracker, to advance or revert the lifecycle stage of an asset. The Move to <stage> dialog box prompts you to describe the decisions and justification for advancing or reverting the stage of the asset, for example stakeholder decisions, recommendations from Legal, or committee meeting minutes.
The information you provide is recorded as a decision gate and added in the Lifecycle tracker with the status Completed.
Decision gates are not carried forward when the AI use case status evolves.