Delegating business requests to alternate approvers

As the BMC Digital Workplace administrator, you can enable the delegation feature so that your end users can assign their business request to alternate approvers. By using this feature, end users can decrease the number of unresolved requests if they cannot process them on time (for example, due to an absence).

Supported types of approvals 

Delegation is supported for the following types of approvals:

• Requests from BMC Remedy Service Request Management 
• Requests from BMC HR Case Management

• Requests from BMC Digital Workplace Catalog

Delegation process overview

The following example shows how to use the delegation feature and introduces a high-level overview of the delegation process:

1. Bob plans a business trip and knows that he will be on leave for two weeks. 
2. Bob creates a delegation rule in BMC Digital Workplace and delegates his potential requests to Mary.
3. Mary receives corresponding notifications in her BMC Digital Workplace, and by email.
4. If any request is assigned to Bob in the specified period of time (two weeks), the request is automatically delivered to Mary in her BMC Digital Workplace Approvals section. 
5. Mary can process (approve, reject, or put on hold) the request on behalf of Bob before he returns from his business trip.
   
   

The following video (2:40) shows you how to delegate approval requests in BMC Helix Digital Workplace:

Before you begin

Ensure that the following features are enabled in the BMC Digital Workplace Admin Console:

• In the Configuration > Application Features section, select Approvals.
  
  
• In the Configuration > Application Features section, select SRM pluggable provider.
  
  
  
  

To check active delegation rules and alternate approvers

Before creating a new delegation rule, end users can check if any alternate approvers are already added to their user profiles, and if similar delegation rules already exist for the intended time period. If end users have active delegation rules created in their BMC Remedy ITSM application, the same delegation rules are displayed to them in their BMC Digital Workplace application.

If end users want see the list of all active delegation rules and available alternate approvers in BMC Remedy ITSM and BMC Digital Workplace, they must complete the following steps:

1. In BMC Digital Workplace, go to Settings, and in the Approval Settings section, review the message about current alternate approvers:
   
   
2. Click Manage approvers.
3. In the Manage alternate approvers window, review the current list of delegation rules and alternate approvers.

Each alternate approver's entry contains the following information:

• • Alternate approver' s profile photo or standard icon
  • Alternate approver's first name and last name
  • Effective dates of the delegation

  • Alternate approver's time zone

    Note

    The approval delegation starts and ends in accordance with the original approver's time zone.

  • Covering value 

    Note

    Covering value shows if the delegation rule covers all approval processes or specific processes. Unlike BMC Remedy ITSM, BMC Digital Workplace covers only all approval processes. If end users need to create a delegation rule that covers specific approval processes, they must create it in BMC Remedy ITSM.

To create a delegation rule

To create a delegation rules, end users must complete the following steps:

1. In BMC Digital Workplace, go to Settings > Approval Settings.
2. Click Manage approvers.
3. Click Add approver, and in the Add an alternate approver window, search for and select a user you would like to add as your alternate approver.

4. Select the Start date and time of the delegation.

   Note

   You cannot select a past date as the start date for the delegation rule.

5. Select the End date and time of the delegation.

6. Click Save.

To edit or cancel an active delegation rule

To edit or cancel an active delegation, end users must complete the following steps:

1. In BMC Digital Workplace, go to Settings > Approval Settings.
2. Click Manage approvers.
3. To change an alternate approver, perform the following steps: 
   
   1. Select Actions > Edit alternate approver. 
   2. In the Add an alternate approver window, search and select another user whom you would like to add as your alternate approver for this delegation.
4. To change date and time, select Edit date and time, change the values, and click Save.
5. To cancel a delegation rule, click Cancel alternate approver, and confirm the action.

Notifications for alternate approvers

Alternate approvers automatically receive notifications in the following cases:

• When the original approver creates a new delegation rule and delegates the potential requests to an alternate approver.
• When the original approver modifies the date or the time period of an active delegation rule.
• When the original approver cancels an active delegation rule.
• When the original approver changes the alternate approver in an active delegation rule. In this case, both alternate approvers (the initial one and the new one) receive notifications.

Alternate approvers receive the following types of notifications:

• Email notifications:
  
  
  
  
• In-app notifications in BMC Digital Workplace:
  
  
• Push notifications on mobile devices (if not disabled by the user):
  
  

Delegated approvals view

If approvers need to distinguish their original approvals and the delegated approvals on their My Activity page, they must check the Status section of the request. The status of the delegated approvals includes an Acting as record that indicates the name of the original approver, as shown in the following illustration: