Phase V: External Review, Testing & Release Prep
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PLEASE NOTE This guide recently transferred ownership and is now maintained by the Veteran Facing Forms team. We’re working through some revisions and encourage you to submit an issue ticket if you have feedback about how we can improve this guide!
🧑🚀 Preparing for Staging & Launch
The goal of this Phase is to scope and proceed through the remaining reviews and notifications, and align your team on the final steps to take before the release.
⏮️ What Your Team Should Have Completed/prepared Before Starting This Phase
🧑🍳 What Your Team Will Have by the End of This Phase
The Design Feedback and Testing work from Phase IV, including:
Feedback and sign-off on design, flow, QA, and analytics
A testable prototype or mockup that meets VA standards
Preparation to move to Staging
Approval/review of form and any updates changes (PO and Form Owner)
Testing your form in staging
Notify Content & IA about the planned release
Add your form to My VA card statuses
A go/no-go plan with launch-blocking issues defined
Team alignment on final steps to take before Launch and Post-Launch
⭐ Steps
Step 1: Launch-blocking issues addressed
These are accessibility, design, or QA that are found during Staging Review. These must be fixed before the form can launch to production.
Carefully follow the accessibility, design, and QA guidelines throughout the form-building process so that your form is as close to compliant as possible from the first review.
Step 2: Testing Your Form on Staging
All Form Paths
- Test every user path (e.g., as a Veteran, as a dependent)
- Verify all conditional paths display and behave correctly
Error Messages & Validation
- All custom error messages are written in plain language
- Do not use "Please respond" as an error message — see VA Error Messages style guide
- Test field-level validation triggers correctly
- Test that the correct error message displays for each field
Save in Progress
- Save form mid-completion, return later, and confirm you can still submit
- Verify the form appears as Draft in My VA — see Stay informed of application status pattern
Review Page
Reference: VA Forms Review template
- Edit and update each accordion section on the review page
- Verify conditional fields update correctly when edited
Confirmation Emails
Reference: Stay informed of application status pattern
- Use your own email address to confirm emails are sending from staging
Confirmation Page
- Test PDF download
- Test all external links to confirm they resolve correctly
- Verify UUID or external reference number displays correctly
PDF Output (via Postman)
- Date/time stamp appears in the top-right corner of the header box (if applicable)
- Date/time stamp and signee type appear at the bottom of the PDF
- Confirm the latest version of the PDF is in use — check the expiration date
- All fields map correctly across all use cases
- Signature and date signed appear in the correct signature and date fields
Central Mail / Downstream System (Benefits Intake API only)
Note: Complete these steps only if your form uses the Benefits Intake API for submission.
- Send test UUIDs to the Central Mail team for all use cases
- Confirm success receipts for each submitted use case
Submit test documents to the Benefits Intake API, this returns an UniqueID, (UUID).
Using UUID submit test documents to gcio-viccs-ops@gcio.com.
You will receive an email when the packets have been uploaded to the CMPortal. This email will include the UUID and the associated PacketID’s created for each UUID.
Step 3: PO and Form Owner review, feedback, and approval
Get approval/review of form. Turnaround time on feedback from the PO and Form Owner may take several weeks, especially if they need to consult other stakeholders.
Meet with stakeholders biweekly
Work through forms as early in mockup as possible
Demo EARLY and OFTEN
Build in appropriate time to respond to feedback.
Step 4: Notify Content & IA
You may have already worked with content and IA in a previous phase, and this will be a touchpoint for closing the loop on that work. Notify #sitewide-content-accessibility-ia when you plan to release the form.
If you are rolling out your form in a phased release, provide the flipper widget name to the content & IA team.
Step 5: Add your form to My VA for progress status
Follow the instructions here to add your form in My VA.
This will display form statuses returned back from the API
Step 6: Create Analytics Intake Ticket
This will enable metrics tracking for the form on a Domo dashboard
These dashboards are standardized across Forms
Follow guidance and file ticket here
Begin request process about a month before you anticipate launching the Form
Step 7: Pre-launch meeting - Go-no-go meeting
Set up a meeting with team prior to launch
Identify any launch blockers
Create a roll back plan as needed
Steps
Notes
Processing time is dependent on the volume and complexity of the test submissions. We usually complete tests within 8 business hours of request.
Scheduling of test requests are preferred so that we can align appropriate resources to support request.
Submission Status within the Benefits Intake API will not be updated while processing unless specifically requested.
MMS created packets will not be routed to VBMS unless the packet is worked in the CMPortal and the upload action is taken.
🔮 Continue to phase 6 →
Help and feedback
Get help from the Platform Support Team in Slack.
Submit a feature idea to the Platform.