Defining rules to manage approvals

You can define business rules to manage how votes affect ticket status, moving a ticket to the next appropriate state based on number or percentage of votes submitted by a specified deadline.

Separate rules are required to manage approval actions and rejection actions.

Prerequisites

At least one state in the applicable workflow process must be designated as an Approval State, and the options configured to identify the next state, and so on. For detailed information, see Configuring workflow processes.

Make sure you have identified the appropriate user roles for responding to approval requests and have assigned users to those roles. For more information, see Configuring users

To define a rule to manage approvals

1. Open the item where you want to define the rule:
   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).
      The Items page appears. 
   4. Double-click the item that you want to modify.
      The Item details page appears.

2. In the left pane, click Workflow Processes.
   The Workflow Processes page appears.

3. Double-click the workflow that you want to modify. For detailed information about creating new workflow process, see Creating workflow processes.
   The Workflow graph appears in the workflow canvas.

4. Select an Approval State in Workflow graph. For detailed information about creating an approval state, see Creating Approval Process.
5. In the left pane, select Business Rules list.
6. Click Add and select After Save or Approval Rule rule type. 
   The Rule Builder page appears. For detailed information about configuring different types of rules, see Types of business rules.
7. In the Business Rule Name field, type a descriptive name for this rule.
8. (Optional) In the Description field, type a description that explains the purpose of this rule.
   This is especially useful when looking for a particular rule in the list.
9. (Optional) In the State field,select Not Active if this rule is not ready for use.
   The Business Rule Type field is read-only.
10. (Optional) In the Business Rule Schedule field, select any work schedule configured for this container, such as Default Work Schedule, Normal Work Week, and so on.
11. In the Triggers section:
    1. Click Add new trigger.
       The new trigger form appears.
    2. Select On Vote.
       For detailed information about selecting triggers, see Selecting triggers for business rules.
    3. Click Create.
       The Triggers section refreshes to show the new trigger statement with icons to the right.
12. In the Criteria section:
    
    1. Click Add new condition.
       The new condition form appears. For detailed information about defining condition statements, see Defining criteria for business rules.
    2. In the first field, select Number of Approval Votes or Approval Votes Percentage.
       You can also select a different approval-related option but these are the most commonly used.
    3. In the Condition field, select greater than or equal to.
    4. In the next field, enter the number or percentage of votes.
       You can also insert Field Variables by selecting one from the list and clicking Insert.
    5. Click Create.
       The When section refreshes to show the new condition statement with icons to the right.
13. In the Actions section:
    
    1. Click Add new action.
       A new action form appears.
    2. In the Action field, select Set field value.

    3. In the Method field, also select Set field value.

    4. In the next field, select Status.
    5. In the Status field, select Approval Next State.
    6. Click Create.
14. Repeat steps 6 through 13 to create a rule to manage the rejection action that corresponds to the approval action you just defined.
15. Click Save.
16. 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.

Related topic

Defining actions for business rules