Setting up approval processes for your company

You can have only one enabled approval process for global use or for each company. For example, you might enable the Service Request Definition - Ad Hoc approval process. You can create additional phase approval processes as needed, but they must be offline or in another state (for example, Proposed).

In a multi-tenancy environment, you can combine approval processes as needed. That is, you might decide Company A needs custom approval processes, but Company B can use the default global processes.

Approval configuration records are mapped for SRDs using navigational categories, price information, and so on, so you can configure several configuration records for a category or company.

 To set up an approval process for your company

1. From the Application Administration Console, click the Custom Configuration tab.
2. From the Application Settings list, choose Foundation > Advanced Options > Approval Process Configuration, and click Open.

3. In the Approval Process Configuration form, enter information in the following fields:

   Field name	Location or tab name	Action and description
   Form Name	Top of form	Select a form from which requests are generated. For BMC Service Request Management, select the SRD:ServiceRequestDefinition form. (SRM:Request is listed for legacy purposes. Do not use it for new process approvals.) When you select a form name, category and total cost fields appear on the Additional Qualifications tab. You will use these fields to map the approval configuration record to the SRD categories for SRDs.
   Company	Top of form	Select the company that will use this approval configuration record. This name maps to the name specified in the Company field on the Delivery tab of the SRD record. BMC Service Request Management supports multi-tenancy, which means that you can configure different approval configuration records for different companies. If you are defining an ad hoc approval, select Global. This option makes sure that the service request goes to the Service Catalog Manager of the SRD, who would either approve the request or route it appropriately.
   Status	Top of form	Select a status for the approval configuration record. Select Enabled to execute this approval configuration record. If the process should not be available in BMC Service Request Management, select the appropriate status: Proposed, Offline, Obsolete, Archived, or Delete.
   Description	Top of form	(Optional) Enter a description of this approval configuration process.
   Phase Name	Approval Process tab	Type or select a value to indicate at which phase of the request this approval configuration record should be executed. The phase name is associated with the company for which this approval is being defined.
   Process Name	Approval Process tab	Select the process that should be used for this approval configuration record from the list of processes you configured. See Company-versus-global-approval-processes.
   Process Type	Approval Process tab	A preconfigured corresponding process type that appears when you select the process name
   Impacts Approval Status	Approval Process tab	Select Yes or No to indicate whether this approval configuration process impacts the approval status of the SRD.
   Default Process Name	Approval Process tab	(Optional) Select another process from the list. In general, if no approvers are found for the Process Name, the Default Process Name is checked, to see if any approvers can be found. If you clear the Default Process Name field, when the SRD reaches the Service Request Definition - Level phase and values did not match the Approver Mappings, the SRD will not have any fallback processes to use. The SRD moves to the next state. Important: Do not select a process unless you specifically need one.
   System Approval Flag	Approval Process tab	(Optional) To specify that no approvers can be mapped to this process on the Approval Mappings form, select Yes. This field is blank by default.
   Sort Order	Approval Process tab	(Optional) If you have multiple approval configuration records for a specific category, you can sort the execution order.

4. Click the Status Flow tab to set up the approval cycle for the specific service catalog.
    The states that appear in the Status menu lists are derived from the Status field of the Service Request Definition form.
    For example, an SRD starts in the Request for Approval state. The Begin column indicates the state that starts the approval process.
    If the SRD is approved, its Status changes to Deployed (as indicated in the Approved column).
    If the SRD is rejected, its Status changes to Rejected (as indicated in the Rejected column). But you might decide instead that the SRD should move back to the Pending state and that the Status Reason should be More Information, or the Status might be Rejected and the Status Reason should be Cancelled.
    You can set up the Status for an SRD if there are no approvers defined for it (for example, Deployed, as indicated in the No Approver column).
5. To create a status flow, follow these steps:
   1. For the Begin state, define a status and a status reason (optional).
       This field specifies which status starts the approval process.
   2. For the Approved state, define a status and a status reason (optional).
       If the SRD is approved, the Approval Server changes the status and status reason values on the relevant form to the values you configure here.
   3. For the Rejected state, define a status and a status reason (optional).
       If the SRD is rejected, the Approval Server changes the status and status reason values on the relevant form to the values you configure here.
   4. For the No Approvers state, define a status and a status reason (optional).
       If the Approval Server does not find any approvers, the Approval Server changes the Status and Status Reason values on the relevant form to the values you configure here.
6. (Optional) Click the Additional Qualifications tab to include other fields in a service request to qualify which approval process to use for a particular request (for example, the Category 1 field or the Total Cost of the SRD).
7. Save the approval process.