Creating approval notifications to notify approvers

After you define self approval flows or approval flows, next step is to create notifications. This is an optional step.

The following image illustrates the end-to-end process of creating an approval process and approval flows:

You can create notifications to inform the approvers when a new approval request is created, an approval request is approved, an approval request is rejected, an approval request is reassigned, an error exists in approval signature, and so on. 

To create an approval notification

1. Log in to BMC Helix Innovation Studio and navigate to the Administration tab.
2. Select Approvals > Notification configuration.
3. In the Approval notifications screen, click New.

4. In the New approval notification window, enter the following details:

   Field	Details
   Record Definition Name	Select the appropriate record definition.
   Notification Name	Enter a name for the notification.
   Notify on	Select one of the following approval cycle event that triggers the notification: New Signature—A new signature line is added to the approval request. Approve—The approval request is approved. Reject—The approval request is rejected. Reassign—An approval is reassigned to a different approver. Error—An error exists in the approval signature. Cancel—An approval request is canceled. More Info Return—A request for more information is fulfilled. Hold—An approval request is put on hold. More Info—More information is requested by an approver.
   Notification Expression	Specify additional conditions that control when a notification is sent, click Select to Build an Expression. The Approval Service uses these conditions in addition to the option you have selected in the Notify On field. You can use the Foundation data to create the Notification Expression.
   Approval Flows	Select one or more approval flows that define how the request gets approved.
   Send To	Specify the users to whom the notification is sent by selecting one of the following options: All Approvers—The approval service sends notifications to the default recipients for the selected approval cycle event. When a request is approved or rejected, the notification is sent based on the Completion Criteria setting in the selected Wait for Approval Definition. All Must Approve—The notification is sent to the defined approver and all the other approvers for whom signature lines have been created. One Can Approve—The notification is sent only to that approver and not the other approvers in the signature line. Other—Specify an individual, a group, or a list of individuals or groups to whom the notification must be sent.
   Global Notification	Select Global Notification if you want to send the same notification for all the flows configured for that record definition. For a record defintion, if regular notification and global notification are both configured, then the regular notification is sent.
   Notification Method	Select the option that you want to use to send notifications to the users. (Default) Email—Use this option to send notifications to an alias for a group, or to an email address. For more information on how to configure email notifications to approve the request, see To configure an email notification. Process—Use this option to select the process that triggers the notification when the record instance, condition, and event for the notification is met. This option provides you the flexibility to plug in any custom notification mechanism and not depend on the process defined by the Approval service. Important: Ensure that you use the following values while designing your process to trigger the approval notification. In the Properties section, click Add/Remove Variables. Click Add Variable to add the approval event (New Signature, Approve, Reject, and so on) on which the notification will be triggered. From Variable Type, select Input/Output Parameter > Input. In Data Type, select Text. In Variable ID, enter 57040. Click Add Variable to add the three-way join record definition for an approval request. A three-way join record definition is a join record that contains data from the record definition that is used to determine the status of a request and the record definition that is used to review the responses to a request. For example, if the record definition used to determine the status of a request is Approval Detail, then the three-way join record definition is Approval Detail Signature. From Variable Type, select Input/Output Parameter > Input. In Data Type, select Record. In Record Definition, select Approval Detail Signature record definition. In Variable ID, enter 57000. Click Save.
   Use Email based Approval template	Select the check box to use an email template for the notification. This check box is displayed only if you select the Email notification method and New Signature as value for the Notify On field.
   Subject	Type a subject line for the notification message. You can use this option if you do not want to use the existing approval templates to send email notifications. Alternatively, click Select to Build an Expression to include record instance variables in the subject line of the notification message.
   Message	Type the message text for the notification. You can use this option if you do not want to use the existing approval templates to send email notifications. Alternatively, click Select to Build an Expression to include record instance variables in the message text.
   Process Name	Select the process that triggers the notification to the users. This option is displayed only after you select Process option from the Notification Method field. Important: Only the processes for which you have permissions are displayed in the Process Name field.
   Email Outgoing Profile	Select the profile that uses the corresponding outgoing mailbox to send email notifications. This field is displayed only if you select the Use Email based Approval template checkbox and New Signature as value for the Notify On field.
   Template	Select the text or HTML templates that can be used to send an email notification. This field is displayed only if you select the Use Email based Approval template checkbox and New Signature as value for the Notify On field. Important: If you do not select any templates, the out-of-the-box approval templates are used to send the notification.

5. To activate this notification configuration, select the Enabled box.
6. Click Save.

To configure an email notification

To receive email notifications to approve or reject the requests, the administrator must perform the following configurations:

• Configure incoming and outgoing mailbox—Configure the incoming and outgoing mailbox to receive email notifications for the approval requests or to send a reply to recipients. 
  To receive email notifications with the correct approval template, ensure that you update the following fields with specific values while configuring your incoming and outgoing mailbox.
  Incoming Mailbox Configuration:

  Tab	Field	Value
  Action Configuration	Email Action	Parse
  	Use Original Template Format	No
  	Reply with Result	Yes
  	Reply with Entry	No
  	Enable Modify Actions	Yes
  	Force Default Workflow Form	No

  Outgoing Mailbox Configuration:

  Tab	Field	Value
  Basic Configuration	Associated Mailbox Name	The incoming mailbox that is used to receive replies to the outgoing emails.
  Advanced Configuration	Reply To Address	The email address to which the replies must be sent.

• Configure the email profiles—Configure the outgoing profile to select from multiple outgoing mailboxes.

• Configure the email templates—Create text or HTML templates that can be used to send notifications in an email.

  To avoid errors, do not use the following keywords in an email template. Because these keywords are reserved, their behavior might not be as intended. 

• Action
• Form
• Schema
• Login
• User
• User Name
• Name
• Login Name
• Password
• Server
• Language
• Authentication
• TCP Port
• TCP

• RPC Number
• RPC
• Qualification
• Query
• Search
• QueryBar
• Key
• Encryption Key
• Encryption
• Template
• Request ID
• RequestID
• Entry ID
• EntryID

• Header Template
• HeaderTemplate
• Header
• Footer Template
• FooterTemplate
• Footer
• Status Template
• StatusTemplate
• Status
• Result
• TemplateResult
• ResultTemplate
• Format

• Create approval notifications to notify approvers—Notify approvers when a new signature is generated, approval request is approved, rejected, reassigned, an error exists in an approval signature, and so on.

To receive approval email notifications, ensure that you update the following fields with specific values while configuring the approval notifications.

Related topics

Approvals

Viewing and responding to approval requests