Creating a chain of approvals

A chain of approvals or chaining refers to a series of approvals. In chaining, an approval is run based on the outcome of a previous approval.

For more information about the basic concepts of approvals, see Approvals.

Configuring a chain of approvals

The following table describes the tasks that you must perform to configure a chain of approvals and how it is executed between flow groups:

Task	Role	Action
1	Case business analyst	Defines a process for a flow group.
2	Administrator	In a flow for another flow group, associates the process with an approval status for a case—Approved, Rejected, or Error.
3	Not Applicable	When the outcome with which the process is associated occurs for a case, the process is executed.

As an administrator, you can configure chaining for both types of approval flow—level up approval and general approval.

Example of a chain of approvals

Consider an example, where as an administrator you want to create an approval flow for medical reimbursement requests by employees. A case for this request needs to be approved by the direct manager, and then, by the HR manager of the employee.

You create the following flow groups:

Reimbursement-Manager approval
Reimbursement-HR approval

The following table provides details about the approval flows:

Flow Group	Flow	Approver	Expression	Outcome	Process	Flow group in which the process is used	Flow group with which the process is associated
Reimbursement-Manager approval	Manager approval	Manager of the requester	Priority = Critical and Category Tier 2 = Benefits	Approved	HR approval	Reimbursement-Manager approval	Reimbursement-HR approval
Reimbursement-HR approval	HR approval	HR manager of the requester	Support Group = HR	Approved	NA	Reimbursement-HR approval	Reimbursement-HR approval

A case status triggers an approval and a case Need medical reimbursement matches with the expression in the Manager approval flow. The direct manager approves the case and the process HR approval is run. Then, the HR manager approves the case.

The case is set to the Pending status until all approvers approve the case.

The following figure illustrates how the chain of approvals is executed in the example:

To create a chain of approvals

BMC Helix Business Workflows provides a sample process Case - Sample Chaining Approval that you can refer to, to create a chain of approvals. The sample process contains the process variables. As a case business analyst, you can create a copy of this process and configure the approval. When you create a copy of the sample process, the process variables are added automatically to the new process.

The following table describes the process variables that are available in the sample process:

Process variable type	Process variable name	Variable ID	Description
Input	Case Record	57000	This ensures that the self approval process is run for the correct case record definition.
Input	Approval Status	57020	This ID stores the outcome of a previous approval.
Output	Final Status	57030	This ID stores the final outcome of the Approval Process element that is used in chaining.

Best practice

BMC recommends that you do not modify these process variables.

To create a copy of the sample process

Log in to BMC Helix Innovation Studio and navigate to the Workspace tab.
Select Case Management Service.
Click Processes.
Select the Case - Sample Chaining Approval process, and click Copy.
In the new process, the process variables are automatically added.
From Palette, drag the Approval Process element to the canvas, and perform the following steps in Element Properties:
1. Under Record, click Click to build an expression.
2. In Edit Expression, from Process Variables, add Case Record, and click OK.
3. In Flow Group Name, click Select.
4. In Select From Approval Flows, select the flow group that you want the process to call, and click Use Selected Flow Group.
(Optional) Use any other elements in the process based on how you want to configure the process.
For more information about elements, see Process designer elements .
Save the process.
After the process is created, an administrator must associate it with an approval flow. For more information about creating approval flows (with or without chaining), see Configuring approval flows .
Note

While configuring an approval flow, in the expression of approval flow execution, you can use the Approver List field to compute an approver of a case or task based on your business logic.

Where to go from here

Creating approval notifications