Adding an approval process to an application

Automate your approval workflow to streamline business processes, save time, and improve efficiency.

You can define the steps for an approval workflow, making sure that the approval items are moved quickly to the next step in the chain and with fewer errors.

By using an automated approval workflow in your application, you can:

  • Achieve compliance with standards as the approvals follow the predefined path from request submission to completion.
  • Improve transparency among stakeholders as all the actions are captured in the system.
  • Decrease errors by setting up and configuring a structured process.

Related topics

Creating-record-associations


Scenario

The Finance department in Apex Global wants to automate the approval requests of purchase orders. The direct manager and the Purchase team should approve each request. After the request is approved, the invoice is generated, and a confirmation email is sent to the requester.

Apex Global wants to automate this process so that:

  • All the purchase orders follow the workflow of going to the designated approvers for approval.
  • Purchase orders that don’t comply with the rules or have outstanding payments must be rejected.

As an application business analyst, you can set up an approval workflow by performing the following actions:

  1. Define an approval workflow to identify the input and output parameters.
  2. Create a record definition to which you want to add the approval workflow.
  3. Create approval flows such as self-approval, manager approval, and group approval flows. The approval requests go to each stage in the approval process as defined.
  4. Create approval notifications to inform the approvers when the state of an approval request changes.
  5. Configure how approvers can approve requests from the Approval console or emails.

You create an approval process to define the workflows and logic required to approve your request for a particular record and configure approval flows to determine the overall process's completion criteria. You can also define views for your approval process so that end users can submit and update approval requests. The Approval Console displays all approval requests. For more information about the Approval Console, see View-and-respond-to-approval-requests.


The following image illustrates the end-to-end process of creating an approval process and approval flows by using BMC Helix Innovation Studio:

23_3_Adding_approval_process.png

Before you begin

If you want to use associations to display field values on the Approval Console, configure the record associations. The associations will be displayed on the record registration page.

To learn about creating record associations, see Creating-record-associations.

Where to go from here

To create an approval process and configure approval flows, perform the following tasks: 

Task

Action

Reference

1

Define an approval process.

If you want to evaluate different expressions, create a self-approval process with additional logic and select it in the self-approval flow.
Optionally, you can define the approval process to allow different flow groups to approve your requests.

2

Register the record definitions on which you want to create the approval flows.

3

(Optional) Create a self-approval flow that is approved automatically by the system.

Create an approval that an individual or group can approve.

4

Create approval notifications to notify a requester when the approval request is approved, rejected, reassigned, or an error exists in the approval signature.

5

View or respond to approval requests by using the Approval Console (or email) after the notification is received.

 

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