Creating approval processes

Approval processes are an important part of Change Management. You can create approval processes that require end users to gain approval for one or more steps of a business process.
For example, you can set up an approval process to specify that any end user who requests a phone must have their supervisor’s approval for the phone purchase. By setting up an approval process for this, you can ensure that the work required is only completed if the appropriate approvals are given.

The approval process is configured as a part of the visual workflow feature. Workflows and approvals are enabled in the Workspace, CMDB, Service Portfolio, and Knowledge Base containers. You cannot set up workflow and approvals in the Address Book.

The following image provides an example of what is included with the ITSM out-of-the-box template, an approval process has been added to the workflow for when the ticket moves to the Request state.

You can create a single approval process to manage change requests or create multiple processes for more complex configurations. An approval process consists of:

User groups identified as approvers
Business rules defined to automate approval notifications and status updates
Approval voting controls added to item forms
Workflow processes defined to move a ticket or other item from creation to closure

Most of the configuration is performed within the container that manages the records. Each workflow comprised of states that represent field values in a field you have specified as the workflow. Approval states can be configured for any item that has the workflow feature enabled (ticket, solution, CI, survey, contract, service level target, work target, service).

You can associate users to approval states and permit only certain users to view or modify a ticket while it is assigned the selected state. This is done by selecting users in the Approvers field, which appears only for states identified as Approval States.

When you restrict the roles that can view a state, unauthorized users can no longer select that state's value on tickets.

The following topics are provided:

Identifying user groups as approvers

You can create user groups (roles) with specific workflow permissions to manage different sets of responsibilities.

For example, it can be useful to create a role for the people who must approve requests and tickets before work can begin. You may only need a single approval (for determining whether a certain team should respond) or multiple approvals (where financial or technical approvals are needed in addition to work acceptance approval).

Also, you can configure an agent portal specifically for users with approval responsibilities that shows them very little of the overall application features. Your users save time because they can quickly review and vote on their assigned tasks and then move on.

For more information about creating agent roles, see Creating Agent roles.

For more information about creating portals for specific user roles, see Configuring portals.

Defining rules for managing approvals

Basic rules are provided in the Business Process templates but you probably will want to customize those basic rules to more closely match your working environment. Both time-based rules and voting approval rules are required. Each rule should provide a way to move a record forward through the approval process.

Create time-based rules with Age criteria to create deadlines for voting and to automate the next action performed on records that pass the deadlines. Make sure to select Day and Hour values so the deadlines have specific times to work against and the actions are performed at appropriate intervals.

Create voting approval rules that perform actions based on the number or percentage of votes and move records forward in the approval process. For example, you might create a rule that uses the On Vote trigger and when the number of Approved votes is greater than a certain number, sets Status to the next appropriate state (such as for example, moving it from Accepted to In Progress).

For more information about creating business rules, see Configuring business rules.

For more instructions for defining approval-related rules, see Defining rules to manage approvals.

Adding an approval voting control to a form

Approval buttons, approval history, and comments do not appear on forms until you add them. When you add an Approvals section to your item forms, the necessary action buttons (ex. approve and reject) are created along with a Comments field and a Voting History window. For detailed information about customizing forms, see Configuring forms.

Open the item that contains the workflow that you want to modify:
1. Click the Administration tab.
2. In the appropriate section, click the name of the container or click Manage to open the container Administration page. Then double-click the container.
  The container details page appears.
3. In the left pane, click the item link (such as Record Definitions in workspaces or Contacts in address books).
  The Items page appears.
4. Double-click the item that you want to modify.
  The Item details page appears, showing the Forms pane.
Double-click the form that you want to modify.
Click Add section > Approvals.
The Approvals section is added to the bottom of the form.
Select the parameters, following the instructions in Configuring sections on forms.
Click Save.
Publish the container to implement your changes:
1. In the breadcrumb trail, click the container link.
2. Click Save and Publish.
  A confirmation message appears.
3. Click Yes.
  The Publication Succeeded message appears, showing the number of errors and warnings.

Creating an approval workflow process

You can configure a single workflow process and manage all change requests by using a single path or you can create multiple workflows for more complex configurations. For detailed information about creating workflow processes, see Configuring workflow processes.

Open the item where you want to create the workflow:
1. Click the Administration tab.
2. In the appropriate section, click the name of the container or click Manage to open the container Administration page. Then double-click the container.
  The Workspace details page appears.
3. In the left pane, click Items.
4. Double-click the item.
  The Item details page appears.
In the left pane, click Workflow Processes.
The Workflow Processes page appears.
Open an existing workflow to add an approval to it or click New Workflow Process and create a new workflow process, using the instructions provided in Creating workflow processes.
Configure the approval and rejection states:
1. Select the state where approval is needed.
  A state is one of the boxes in the diagram and represents a field value.
2. In the left pane, select Approval State.
  
  The Create states dialog box appears, asking whether approved and rejected states should be created.
3. Do one of the following:
  - To create two new states, click Yes. Two new cells are created: Approved and Rejected. Create connection lines to other workflow states as required.
  - To use existing states, click No.
    Additional fields appear in the left pane.
4. In the left pane, select the fields for the next states after approval or rejection occurs:
  1. In the Approval Next State field, select the next state in the process for approved records.
  2. In the Rejection Next State field, select the next state in the process for rejected records.
  3. In the Expiration Next State field, select the next state in the process for expired approval requests.
Select approvers:
1. In the Approvers field, click Add/Remove.
  The Assign Approvers lookup appears, showing the Individual user tab. To select individual users, move users from the Available Users list to the Approvers list.
2. To select teams, click the Teams tab and move teams to the Approvers list.
  To use the value from a specific field, click the Dynamic tab and select fields from the Available Fields list.
  This is useful when the field value may not be known before the ticket enters the associated approval state.
  For example, if your approvals were based upon location, you could specify approvers based upon the value of the Location field. The system looks in the selected fields for Approvers to assign to the ticket. You can use this option to select contacts, supervisor, the supervisor's supervisor, and so on, providing a level of coverage for approval that includes backups automatically.
  Important
  
  For any assignment type field, the following 5 options are generated for dynamic approvers:
  - <assignment field>—when any user assigned in the field or any user that is a member of a team assigned in the field becomes an approver
  - <assignment field>’s Supervisor—when a supervisor of a user assigned in the field or a supervisor of any user that is a member of a team assigned in the field becomes an approver
  - <assignment field>'s Supervisor's Supervisor —when a supervisor of an assigned user's supervisor or a supervisor of an assigned team member's supervisor becomes an approver
  - <assignment field>’s Team—when any user that is a member of a team assigned in a field becomes an approver
  - <assignment field>’s Team Lead—when a user configured as a Team Leader of a team assigned in a field becomes an approver
  The <assignment field> refers to any field of assignment type. For example, Assignees.
3. To select backup assignees to be assigned when the Dynamic assignee list is empty, click the Fallback tab and select backup assignees to respond when no other approvers are specifically assigned.
4. Click Assign Approvers.
Select Require Approval Password check box if you want users to provide their account password when they cast their approval vote through web interface.
Important

- Approvals through web server authentication do not require a password.
- Approvals through email are not allowed.
Add and adjust the transition lines to define the correct approval and rejection path for records through the process.
(Optional) In the Business Rules list, select rules as needed. Certain approval and rejection rules may be applied by the system. For more information, see Configuring business rules.
(Optional) To define to which records (with the specific item type) this workflow should be applied, click Defining Criteria in the left pane and select or create the necessary criteria. For more information, see Configuring defining criteria for a workflow.
Click Save.
Publish the container to implement your changes:
1. In the breadcrumb trail, click the container link.
2. Click Save and Publish.
  A confirmation message appears.
3. Click Yes.
  The Publication Succeeded message appears, showing the number of errors and warnings.

Creating approval processes

Identifying user groups as approvers

Defining rules for managing approvals

Adding an approval voting control to a form

Creating an approval workflow process

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