Reviewing change requests

Your organization's policies might require change requests to be approved by a manager or other person.

Before you begin

To set up the approval process, the administrator configures the approval process. The Smart IT application retrieves the approval setup from BMC Change Management and applies it to Smart IT change requests.

A change request approver in Smart IT must have permission to view the change request. Otherwise, the change request can be approved by using Approval Central or email-based approvals. For more information, see Smart-IT-roles-and-permissions.

To authenticate yourself as a change request approver

You might be prompted to authenticate yourself as a change approver.

Based on whether BMC Remedy Single Sign-On is integrated or not, you must do one of the following to authenticate yourself as the approver by using your Smart IT login credentials and submit your review:

• If BMC Remedy Single Sign-On is integrated with Smart IT, the system redirects you to the BMC Remedy Single Sign-On authentication page. You must login using your Smart IT login credentials.
• If BMC Remedy Single Sign-On is not integrated with Smart IT, you must enter your Smart IT password on the approval banner to authenticate yourself

To review and approve a change request

After the change request has been submitted for approval, the approver receives a notification about it. An approver can also search for change requests requiring approval by using filters in the Ticket Console (for example, Ticket Type = Change, To be approved by = Me, or Approval Status = Change Awaiting Approval). 

On the change request, the following banner appears. The approver can approve, reject, or keep the request on hold.

If BMC Remedy Single Sign-On is not integrated with Smart IT, to authenticate yourself as the approver, the approver enters Smart IT login password in the Login password field. In the rationale field, the approver provides a reason for the review, and then submits the review.

If BMC Remedy Single Sign-On is integrated with Smart IT, after adding the reason for the review, when the approver submits the review, the approver is directed to the BMC Remedy Single Sign-On login page. The approver must enters his Smart IT login credentials to authenticate self.

After authenticating the approver, the system accepts the review. After the approver completes the review, the change request is displayed on the approver's Updates feed.

To see details about the approvals, the approver clicks Show approvers > (right arrow) and views the Approval List.

To see the list of reviewers

On the Open tab, the reviewer can see a list of reviewers who have not yet made their decision about the change request or have put it on hold. The Closed tab displays a list of reviewers who have already approved or rejected the change request.

Important considerations about the Open and Closed tabs are given below:

• Depending on the value specified in If multiple approvers option on the AP:Role form in BMC Remedy ITSM, the system identifies mandatory and optional reviewers on the Open tab. Optional reviewers from the support groups are listed under One of the following people must sign section. Reviewers whose review is mandatory are listed under All the following people must sign section of the Open tab.
• The number of sub sections under One of the following people must sign depends on the number of reviewers and the support groups to which they belong. For example, there are 4 reviewers from 4 support groups. On the Open tab of the Approval list pane, they are placed in 4 sections under One of the following people must sign section.
• On the AP:Role form, when the If multiple approvers option is set to One must sign, then one of the member of the support group, and all the individual reviewers must review the change request.
• On the AP:Role form, when the If multiple approvers option is set to All must sign, then all the members of the support groups and all the individual reviewers must review the change request.
• Individual reviewers and support groups with single member are by default listed under All the following people must sign section.
• When one of the members of the support group keeps the change request on hold, the Approval list pane still displays name and details of reviewers from the support groups. Other pending reviewers can review the change request.
• When one of the member of the support group approves the change request, the approver and other members of that support group are moved to the Closed tab. Reviews by the other reviewers of that support group are bypassed.
• When a reviewer rejects the change request, all the pending reviewers are automatically moved to the Closed tab, and the Open tab becomes empty. The change request is moved to the Reject status, and it is not passed to the next status. The rejected change request can be later resubmitted. For more information, see Resubmitting a rejected request.
• When you restart the same change request, the system displays the status previous to the status that required review. For example, if the change request is rejected in the Review status, after restart, the change request is displayed in its previous status In progress. When it is moved from In progress to Review status, again the review process with the same reviewers starts.
• When a reviewer belongs to multiple support groups that are configured for reviewing the change request. In this case, the support group name is displayed on the basis of the first match group. It could be any group. The system selects the first match group out of the groups assigned for review to which the user belongs.

Alternate approvers

You can designate alternate approvers in the People form in BMC Remedy ITSM.

Like primary approvers, alternate approvers can also receive notifications about change requests requiring approval. These change requests appear in the Updates feed on the Dashboard. Alternate approvers can locate change requests that require approval by using filters in the Ticket Console. See Overview.

Ad hoc approvers

Individuals and groups can be added as ad hoc approvers to a change request, in addition to the approvers that are selected by any configured approval processes. Ad hoc approvers can only be added to an active approval process where there are still pending approvals. This functionality helps to ensure that all relevant signatures are obtained.

The ability to add ad hoc approvers to a change request is limited to:

• Any user with Infrastructure Change User permissions that belongs to the assigned Change Coordinator or Change Manager support group
• Any user with Infrastructure Change Master permissions

You can select individual approvers who have an active People record with a login ID. The user does not need to be a member of a support group or have the Infrastructure Change Approver functional role to be added as an approver. For group approvers, at least one member of the group must be a member of a support group and have the Infrastructure Change Approver functional role.

Ad hoc approvers are notified immediately of the pending approval request, which is handled as a separate approval signature. The change request cannot move past the approval phase until each ad hoc approval is completed, along with any approval that is mapped to the change request through a configured approval process.

The following figure shows how to add approvers from the Approval list in the universal client. To add a group, select Add Approval Group and choose the support company, organization, and group. To add an individual, choose Add Approver and enter the user's name or email, and the system will search for case-sensitive matches.