Approvals - Approving change requests

Within the lifecycle of the change request, approvals might be required. There are several approval phases possible, which vary depending on how your organization configures and implements the possible changes. Some changes bypass the approval process altogether. The application administrator determines which change requests require approval, what kind of approval process the change requests must undergo, and who the approvers are. Support staff and management can add more approvers to the list.

For more information, see Adding approvers.

Approving changes


Submit the change request for approval after you have completed planning the change request and provided all the information that the approvers require to review the change request.

When the change request requires an approval move to the next stage, the word Approval is displayed on the Process Status Flow bar. You must approve, cancel, put on hold, or reject the approval from the approval table. You can configure the approval settings to require one or all approvers. For more information on configuration options, see Defining roles in the BMC Remedy AR System Approval Server documentation.

It is important to understand that the change manager (or change coordinator) controls the overall progress of a change request. Change managers submit the requests for approval and monitor the approval process. As a manager, you might be required to review change requests for approval. You review change requests and provide approval through BMC Change Management.

Approvers are notified when a change request requires their approval. If an approval is reassigned, the new approver is notified. After reviewing the change request, approvers can approve it, reject it, or put it on hold if more information is required. When an approver approves the change request, the change request is refreshed and the updated approval status is displayed in the Approval table on the change form.

In BMC Change Management version 8.1.00, if configured, approvers can approve or reject change requests via email. For more information on approvals using email, see Approving or rejecting requests via email.

When the change request is in the Approval phase, the following fields cannot be modified:

• Services CI
• Impact
• Urgency
• Priority
• Risk Level
• Status
• Class
• Change Location
• Change Manager details
• Change Coordinator
• Relationships
• Operation Categorization
• Product Categorization
• Financial Information
• Any Date fields

An approver might not have have access to the BMC Change Management application to approve a change request. If the approver's access permission does not allow access the change request, he can use BMC Remedy AR System Approval Central to approve change requests. For more information on approving change requests from the Approval Central, see Approving changes using Approval Central.

If a technical error occurs when the request is sent for an approval, the change request moves to the Pending status with a status reason as Approval Error. The change user can restart the change request so that it can be sent for approval again.

The change request is refreshed when no approvers are found for an approval phase or when an approver approves the change request.

See the following procedures:

• For information about reviewing proposed change requests and providing or denying approval, see Handling approvals for emergency change requests.
• For information about reviewing the approval process, see Working with BMC Change Management as an approver.
• For information about adding approvers, see Adding approvers.