04
January 2011
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Preface 13
Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
AR System documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Contents 5
Approving and rejecting requests from Approval Central . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Rejection justification for approval requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Working with request details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Processing More Information requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Requesting more information about approval requests. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Viewing and responding to More Information requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Viewing pending More Information requests and responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Viewing all More Information requests you submitted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Using alternate approvers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Designating alternate approvers for yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Viewing and modifying alternate approver definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Viewing requests for which you are an alternate approver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Defining alternates for other approvers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Performing overrides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Performing an override to a single signature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Performing a global override . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Contents 7
Working with existing rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Viewing and modifying rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Deleting rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Contents 9
AP:Admin-Rename . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
AP:Admin-ServerSettings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
AP:Customize-SourceID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
AP:Detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
AP:Detail-Signature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
AP:DynamicLabels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
AP:Form. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
AP:Notification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
AP:Preview Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
AP:PreviewInfo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
AP:PreviewSignatures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
AP:Process Administrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
AP:Process Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
AP:Question-Comment-Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
AP:Reserved Word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
AP:Role . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
AP:Rule Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
AP:Signature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
AR System Business Time forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
User forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Approval Central . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
AP:AdhocDialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
AP:Alternate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
AP:Dtl-Sig-MoreInfoDialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
AP:More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
AP:Password. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
AP:Reassign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
AP:Rejection Justification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
AP:Show-Detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
AP:ShowDetail-DeleteVerify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Index 293
Contents 11
12 BMC Remedy Approval Server Guide
Preface
IMPORTANT
The compatibility information listed in the product documentation is subject to
change. See the compatibility matrix at http://www.bmc.com/support for the
latest, most complete information about what is officially supported.
Carefully read the system requirements for your operating system, especially the
patch requirements. See the Installation Guide, Obtaining system requirements
and software, page 12.
Audience
The BMC Remedy Approval Server Guide is written for:
Users of the BMC Remedy Action Request System (AR System) product who
want to understand approval workflow, including requesters and approvers.
Administrators of AR System who install the BMC Remedy Approval Server
(approval server) component, create users, forms, and workflow objects, and
assign permissions.
Approval server process administrators who design and maintain approval
processes.
This document assumes you are familiar with AR System. The administration
sections assume that you want to add the approval server feature to an existing
application.
This document provides instructions to install approval server forms and
workflow on the Windows and UNIX operating systems, and assumes that you
are familiar with the environment in which you install the software.
AR System documents
The following table lists documentation available for AR System 7.6.04.
Unless otherwise noted, online documentation in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format is
available on AR System product installation DVDs, on the Customer Support
website (http://www.bmc.com/support), or both.
Preface 13
BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.6.04
You can access product help through each products Help menu or by clicking
Help links.
NOTE
The AR System product help has not been updated for version 7.6.04. The help
topics still apply to version 7.6.03. For the most recent content, refer to the PDF
documentation.
1
The full title of each guide includes BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.6.04
(for example, BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.6.04 Concepts Guide), except
Preface 15
BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.6.04
the BMC Remedy Migrator Guide and BMC Remedy Encryption Security Guide.
2 Application developers who use BMC Remedy Developer Studio.
3 C and Java programmers who write plug-ins and clients for AR System.
This chapter introduces basic concepts and terminology related to BMC Remedy
Approval Server (approval server).
The following topics are provided:
Approvals in business processes (page 18)
Overview of the approval server (page 18)
Basic approval server concepts (page 19)
Figure 1-1: Using BMC Remedy Approval Server with AR System applications
Approval processes
An approval process is a set of rules and procedures, based on data, that enforce
processes and workflow to require the appropriate people to review, approve, and
reject requests.
A process must have rules to make sure all required approvals occur, no
erroneous approvals occur, and sufficient authority is present to enable
approval.
A process must have procedures to route an approved request to the next
approver, to stop routing a rejected request, and to notify a person when a
response is required.
Every approval requires a process to obtain appropriate signatures. Business
processes often require the signatures of several people in one or more operational
groups. Business processes also need to allow for alternate approvers to cover days
when the regular approvers are unavailable.
A given request might require one simple approval process, or several processes
that work with each other. Often the appearance of a single operation involves
multiple approvals. Some requests must follow a process but can be approved
automatically based on certain criteria.
In BMC Remedy Approval Server, an approval process is the set of rules and forms
that generate data to authorize specific AR System workflow. An approval process
consists of definitions for the operation itself, rules that define what happens at
each specific stage in the process, and a place to store signatures. While process
administrators need to understand these rules, they are transparent to approvers.
The types of rules and how they interact are described under Approval server
rules on page 82.
The data generated by an approval process, such as the type of approval, approver
signatures, requests for more information, and time stamps for audit trails, is
stored in the detail record and other supporting forms. This enables you to track
the approval process for auditing or troubleshooting purposes. For more
information about data, see Approval data and audit on page 70.
Approval roles
Three roles are involved in the approval process: those requesting approval
(requesters), those approving requests (approvers and alternate approvers), and
process administrators who set up and modify the approval server configuration.
Most approval processes are transparent to requesters, who therefore do not need
a thorough understanding of approval server. This document is primarily written
for approvers and process administrators.
Requesters
Requesters are people who want something to be approved. Requesters work with
an application that starts an approval process by entering an approval request.
Approval requests are routed to all required approvers according to the rules of
the approval process.
The approval server allows requesters to enter approval requests, check the status
of their requests, and respond to More Information requests.
Approvers
Approvers are people with the authority to approve, reject, reassign, hold, or
provide questions and comments for a request in a given process.
The process administrator configures approvers for each process, so that each
request has a specified approver list. Different requesters can have different
approver lists for the same process.
An approver list specifies the exact list of signatures required for a request. A
signature can come from an individual or from a business role containing multiple
individuals, such as department managers. The approval server allows you to
work with any combination of individuals and roles to create the approver list for
each process.
Approvers interact with the approval server to review outstanding requests that
are assigned to them, and to take action on those requests. Approver actions are
performed using Approval Central, which is the approval server console. (For
more information, see Approval Central on page 255.) The actions approvers
can take include:
Approving
Rejecting
Reassigning
Holding
Requesting and responding to More Information Requests
Checking status
Approvers have access to the details of the request being processed as well as to
the request history. The history includes a list of all approvers who have
responded to the request, and the actions they took. Also, any comments that have
been entered by other approvers are available for review.
If approvers need to obtain more information before approving a request, they can
send a More Information request to any AR System user. A More Information
request is separate from the approval request, but remains associated with it.
Alternate approvers
When an approver cannot be available, such as during a business trip or vacation,
the approver can define an alternate approver with the same authority within an
approval process. An alternate is someone who substitutes for the approver and
acts with the approvers authority and privileges for a duration of their choice.
Approvers can to set up any number of alternates. Each alternate might be set up
to substitute within one or more approval processes.
Process administrators
The process administrator is a user who has permission to carry out design and
administration tasks in the approval server. Process administrators can perform
the following tasks:
Define approval server processes and rules.
Override the normal flow of a process when an emergency situation requires it.
Grant limited authority to specified users, allowing them to configure a process,
to override a process, or both.
Designate alternates for any approver.
Process administrator actions are performed using the AP:Administration form.
NOTE
An approval server process administrator is not the same as the AR System
administrator. See Chapter 5, Introduction to approval forms, processes, and
rules, for an explanation of the process administrators responsibilities.
This section describes the procedures that process administrators use to configure
BMC Remedy Approval Server (approval server).
The following topics are provided:
Using the approval server Administration form (page 24)
Process administrator (page 25)
Configuring process administrator capabilities (page 26)
Configuring server settings (page 27)
Configuring business times (page 32)
Configuring previews (page 33)
Configuring the approval server to work with flowcharts (page 33)
This chapter only describes how to use the following tabs and links on the
AP:Administration form:
Administrator tabThis tab enables you to create and configure process
administrators. See Creating a process administrator on page 26.
Server settings linkThis link enables you to configure approval server
logging, and customize other approval server settings. See Configuring server
settings on page 27.
For information about using other tabs and links on the AP:Administration form,
see Chapter 6, Defining an approval process, Chapter 7, Defining approval
rules. Also see these sections: Connecting an application to the approval server
on page 152, Adding notifications to the approval process on page 158, and
Defining roles on page 106.
Process administrator
A process administrator is an AR System user with the authority to define an
approval process and to perform administrative tasks related to the AR System.
The first process administrator must be set up by the AR System administrator, but
others can be set up by an existing process administrator.
The process administrator is a more powerful authority than the signature
authorities (approvers) who actually sign approval requests. A process
administrator performs the following responsibilities:
Designs the approval process to generate approval signature data when
AR System workflow needs to be authorized.
Connects the approval server forms to workflow to accomplish the designed
approval process. This includes configuring routing, and creating the list of
authorized approvers. See also Chapter 9, Adding approvals to your
application.
Overrides a process, or parts of a process, when circumstances arise that must
be handled outside of established workflow. See Performing overrides on
page 54.
Creates and deletes other process administrators as needed. Other process
administrators can have full or limited authority. A process administrator with
limited authority can perform the following activities:
Act as an administrator to manage only specific processes that are assigned
by a process administrator with full authority.
Act as an override-only administrator to approve or reject requests regardless
of the approver list for the assigned processes.
3 On the Process Administrator tab, specify appropriate values in the various fields.
See AP:Process Administrator on page 229.
4 Click Save.
NOTE
The Plugin Loopback RPC Socket field of the Server Settings dialog box controls
the same setting as the Plugin Loopback RPC Program Number field on the Ports
and Queues tab of the AR System Administration: Server Information form.
If the Plugin Loopback RPC Program Number is already defined for the
AR System server, enter the same RPC number in the Plugin Loopback RPC Socket
field of the Server Settings window. If this queue is not already defined for the
server, it will appear in the Server Information dialog box, on the Server Ports and
Queues tab, after you enter it in the Server Settings dialog box.
For more information about defining server ports and queues, see the
Configuration Guide, Server InformationPorts and Queues tab, page 157.
WARNING
If Plugin-Loopback-RPC-Socket is not defined, the approval server attempts to
use Approval-RPC-Socket to run the Visualizer sub-plugin. Therefore, if
Approval-RPC-Socket is missing from ar.cfg (or ar.conf), the Preview feature
will not work.
4 To generate a log of the approval server activity, check Approval Debug Mode.
5 In the Log File Name field, type the full path to the debug log file.
See Approval server debug log on page 27.
6 In the Definition Check Interval field, accept the default (300), or enter a new value.
The Definition Check Interval is the number of seconds after which the approval
server checks for changes to process definitions.
A larger number can increase AR System performance.
A smaller number is useful while creating and testing a process.
A zero (0) in this field causes immediate implementation of a definition.
7 To cause the approval server to use a dedicated private queue when it makes calls
to the AR System server, enter an RPC port number in the Private AR Server RPC
Socket field.
Choose an available RPC port number from the valid ranges. See Private queues
for loopback calls on page 28.
Leave this field empty if your approval server implementation does not use a
dedicated queue for loopback calls to the AR System server.
8 To cause the approval server to use the plug-in loopback RPC socket for loopback
calls, as required for the preview feature, enter the loopback queue RPC port
number in the Plugin Loopback RPC Socket field. Use an RPC port number from
the ranges given in step 7.
Leave this field empty if your Plug-in server does not use a dedicated loopback
RPC port. See Plugin Loopback RPC Socket on page 28.
9 Specify the Due-Soon Interval in Hours or Days for approval requests to be
highlighted when an approver logs in to Approval Central.
10 Specify the Recent History Interval in Hours or Days for the approval requests to
be displayed in the My Recent History section of Approval Central for an
approver.
11 Click Save to save your changes.
12 If you set a value for either the Private AR Server RPC Socket or Plugin Loopback
RPC Socket field, restart the AR System server.
NOTE
Activating events on this form does not guarantee that this event will generate a
notification or escalation. However, if you do not activate an event on this form, all
other notification and escalation settings are ignored for that event.
Configuring previews
The AP:PreviewInfo form allows requesters and approvers to get a list of the
completed and remaining approvals for any request. This is referred to as
previewing approvals.
To allow users to preview approval responses, you must perform the following
configuration actions:
Configure the AR System server and the approval server to use a Plug-in
Loopback RPC socket. See Configuring settings on the Basic tab on page 30.
Configure the approval process to generate a preview at the required time. See
Creating a process on page 98.
Design a form that will query the AP:PreviewInfo form. See Adding previews
to your approval application on page 168.
Create workflow that uses the Add-PGNA-Values command to gather
signatures. See Defining Parameterized Get Next Approver rules on page 126.
NOTE
The suite installer defines the RPC port and sets the same in the approval Plugin
Loopback RPC Socket automatically. Confirm that these settings exist, and define
them if they do not.
On the Basic tab of the AP:Process Definition form, select a value from the
Generate Preview list.
On the General Settings page of the BMC Remedy Mid Tier Configuration Tool:
Set the Data Visualization Module Server to the server where the Visualizer
plug-in is installed.
Select the appropriate authentication server.
See the Configuration Guide, Server InformationEA tab, page 144.
NOTE
You must have Flash version 9.x or later installed on the machine.
The flowchart view is backward compatible with mid tier 7.1.00 and 7.0.01. You
can use any version of BMC Remedy User to see the flowchart view for an
approval request, or view it through a browser.
NOTE
The Data Visualization Field cannot be seen using Firefox 2.0.0.11 on Mac 10.4.11;
this is an issue with the browser.
Approval Central is the primary console for the users of BMC Remedy Approval
Server (approval server).
This section describes how approvers use Approval Central to process approval
requests, how approvers and process administrators specify alternate approvers,
and how process administrators carry out approval overrides.
The following topics are provided:
Approval Central (page 36)
Opening Approval Central (page 37)
AR System Object List in browsers (page 37)
Working with pending approval requests (page 38)
Processing More Information requests (page 45)
Using alternate approvers (page 50)
Performing overrides (page 54)
Approval Central
Approval Central is designed for process administrators and approvers, and can
be used to perform the following activities:
Search for approval requests by specifying certain criteria
View approval request details
Approve or reject requests
Put requests on hold
Define alternate approvers
Reassign a request to another approver
Create or respond to More Information requests
Process administrators use Approval Central to override approvers to respond to
requests when necessary. Approvers also use Approval Central when acting as
alternates for other approvers.
Figure 3-1: Approval Central as seen by the sample user Jack Miller
Step 3 You review the approval request and take one of the following actions:
For example, you can retrieve a list of only those requests pertaining to a particular
application, requests made by a specific requester, requests that are already
approved or rejected, or requests directed to another approver, for whom you are
designated as an alternate. For more information, see Approval Central on
page 255.
The following procedure is an example of how to retrieve a list of requests
pertaining to a particular application.
WARNING
No undo option exists when you respond to a request. After you respond to a
request, you do not have any opportunity to change your mind.
If you click Approve and other approvers are required, AR System routes the
requests to the respective next approvers. If you click Approve and no further
approvers are required, the request statuses change to Approved, and the
approval process is done. If you click Reject, the request statuses change to
Rejected, and the approval process is done. If you click Hold, the request statuses
change to Hold until any further action is performed on them.
If you provide an incorrect password, the error Authentication failed.
Please enter your valid AR System password. (ARERR 45490) appears,
and no action is performed on the selected requests.
If the approver provides some text and clicks OK, the request is rejected. The text
is saved in AP:Question-Comment-Info as a comment of the Justification type.
The justification also appears in the Activity Log.
Applications can also enable approvers to provide rejection justification on the
three-way join form. To make this possible, application developers must:
Add a Character field of unrestricted length (to accept more than 255 characters)
on the three-way join form for an approver to enter the comment.
Provide the workflow to push the comment onto AP:Signature after the
approver clicks Reject.
If the process mandates a rejection justification, and the approver sets Approval
Status to Rejected and saves the request without providing a justification, the
Reject action fails. The following error is written to the approval log:
The processName process requires a rejection justification, which
the approver failed to provide.
See Creating the join forms on page 153 and Appendix D, Approval forms.
For general information about join forms, see the Form and Application Objects
Guide, Join forms, page 148.
4 Click the drop-down arrow on the Approval Status field, and choose Approve, as
shown in Figure 3-2.
To ask for more information about the request, see Processing More Information
requests on page 45.
5 If the Password field is present, enter your password. Otherwise, proceed to the
next step.
If a password is required and you do not enter your password, or if you enter the
wrong password, AR System returns the following error:
Authentication failed. Please enter your valid AR System password.
(ARERR 45490)
NOTE
The AR System administrator must configure the password field to appear on the
three-way join form when it is required. See Show the password field in the detail
view on page 167.
6 Click Save.
You can use the same procedure to reject or hold a request by setting the Approval
Status to Rejected or Hold.
For information about how to configure an approval process to require a
password, see Creating a process on page 98.
When you return to Approval Central and refresh the search, this request is
removed from the table of pending requests.
WARNING
Once you respond to a request, you cannot undo or change your response.
NOTE
If the approval process includes rules that specify the next approver, the process
rules supersede any changes you make in the detail-signature view.
Specifying the next approver is not the same as reassigning an approval request.
The option to specify the next approver also requires you to approve or reject the
request. For information about reassigning requests, see Reassigning approval
requests on page 45.
4 In the Next Approver field, enter the names of the next approvers.
You must enter one or more AR System login IDs. To specify multiple approvers,
separate each name with a semicolon (;).
5 If you specify multiple approvers, determine the appropriate option for the If
Multiple Approvers field.
One Must SignA single signature entry is created for all approvers. Only one
of those approvers needs to take action.
All Must SignSeparate signature entries are created for all approvers. Each
approver must take action for the request to proceed further.
NOTE
In an Ad Hoc approval process, if you do not complete the If Multiple Approvers
field, AR System requires all additional approvers to sign the request.
NOTE
The Manage More Information control is not provided out-of-the-box with the
approval server; it is only included in the sample applications. To use this control
with a customized application, you must add it to the relevant three-way join form.
c Click Save.
The More Information form closes, and the pending More Information request
appears temporarily in the More Information Requests table on the AP:Dtl-Sig-
MoreInfoDialog form.
d Click Close.
AR System forwards the request to the person from whom you requested more
information. The original approval request is removed from your list of pending
approval requests in Approval Central until the recipient has responded to the
More Information request.
NOTE
By default, the Public group does not have change permission to the Response field
of the AP:More Information form. The AR System administrator must set the
correct permissions on this field to allow the appropriate groups to respond to
More Information requests.
NOTE
The Manage More Information control is not provided out-of-the-box with the
approval server; it is only included in the sample applications. To use this control
with a customized application, you must add it to the relevant three-way join form.
NOTE
If your alternate designates an alternate, authority to sign your approvals is not
passed on. Only the specific person you designate can act as your alternate.
Use the procedure in this section to create an alternate approver for yourself. If you
want multiple alternates, repeat this procedure for each alternate, as shown in
Figure 3-7.
NOTE
A time lapse of up to 60 minutes past the defined End Date might occur before an
alternate loses the alternate privileges. For performance reasons, this interval is set
to 60 minutes in the approval server.
NOTE
Your administrator might need to modify the permissions on the fields in the
AP:Alternate form to allow submitters to make changes to requests in the form.
Performing overrides
The override capability of the approval server allows a process administrator to
move an approval process forward when the normal approver has not responded.
An override is useful in an unexpected situation, such as when the normal
approver is unavailable but did not designate an alternate.
A single-signature override closes one approver signature, similar to acting as an
alternate approver for one signature line, and allows the approval request to
continue within the regular process. In this case, an override rejection terminates
the request just as if the normal approver had rejected it. An override approval
moves the request forward just as if the normal approver had approved it. If more
approvers exist, the request is routed to them.
A global override closes all open signatures, stops routing the request, and
terminates the approval process for that request. The global override is useful for
unusual situations, such as ending an approval process for a request that is no
longer necessary.
A process administrator can assign override-only authority to any user without
granting other approval process administrator privileges. For more information,
see Configuring process administrator capabilities on page 26.
This section demonstrates how to perform basic approval functions by using Get
Agreement, one of the sample applications bundled with BMC Remedy Approval
Server (approval server). The Get Agreement application demonstrates how
requesters and approvers work with approval and More Information requests in
an Ad Hoc approval process.
The following topics are provided:
Overview of the Get Agreement application (page 58)
Accessing Approval Central (page 58)
Creating new approval requests (page 59)
Approving approval requests (page 60)
Reassigning approval requests (page 61)
Requesting more information (page 62)
Approval Status and More Information requests (page 63)
Responding to More Information requests (page 63)
Viewing responses to More Information requests (page 65)
Checking status of requests (page 66)
NOTE
The Questions, Comments with attachments, Notes, and Multi-process preview
features are available out-of-the-box with this sample application. For more
information, see AP:Show-Detail on page 271.
NOTE
In this sample application, the Get Agreement form is the application request form.
NOTE
The process specifies whether or not a request can be reassigned.
Figure 4-3: Violet Anderson reassigns Frank Williams request to Sue Smith
5 In the AP:Reassign dialog box, type Sue Smith, and click OK.
6 After returning to Approval Central, click Search to refresh the list of pending
approval requests.
The reassigned request disappears from the Approval Requests table.
Figure 4-4: Larry Goldstein asks Violet Anderson a question about Frank Williams request
NOTE
Larry could approve or reject the approval request without waiting for Violets
response to the More Information request. If he does so, Larrys More Information
request will be closed when Franks approval request is done (all approvers have
responded), regardless of whether Violet has seen the More Information request.
NOTE
To save an entry in the Response field of AP:More Information, the user must be a
member of a group with Change permission to the field. The AR System
administrator might need to set the appropriate group-based permissions on the
Response field. For information about changing field permissions, see the Form
and Application Objects Guide, Field permissions, page 32.
NOTE
Until the recipient responds to the More Information request, the Approval Status
of the associated approval request is More Information, rather than Pending. If you
do not see the approval request you are looking for in the approval requests table
on Approval Central, click the Search My Approvals link in the Action Menu panel
and search for More Information requests.
Figure 4-6: Larry Goldstein views Violet Andersons response to his question
TIP
Optionally, to see the response in the AP:More Information form, click Needs
Attention on Approval Central, select the appropriate request, and click View.
Step 1 Log in to AR System as Larry Goldstein, and approve the I need a new computer
request.
Step 2 Log in to AR System as Jack Miller, and approve the I need a new computer
request.
Figure 4-7: Franks approval request in the Get Agreement application request form
Figure 4-8: Viewing the status for each approver in the Get Agreement application
4 To determine which approver is associated with each status, select an entry from
the results list.
The approvers name appears in the Approvers field, in the detail area of the
window. In the example shown in Figure 4-8 on page 68, Frank can see that this
request is Pending for Violet Anderson.
5 Introduction to approval
forms, processes, and rules
This section introduces the concepts that process administrators must understand
to configure and maintain approval processes for BMC Remedy Approval Server
(approval server).
The following topics are provided:
Approval server data and forms (page 70)
Approval processes (page 72)
Approval server rules (page 82)
Approver fields (page 94)
Approval Central
See Approval Central on page 36.
Detail form
All data about an approval request are stored in the AP:Detail form. You can use
this form to determine the status of a request, and to see a history of activity on the
request for any approval process.
Signature form
All data about signatures associated with an approval request is stored in the
AP:Signature form. Administrators can use this form to review the responses to a
request.
NOTE
Modify signatures only through Approval Central.
Detail-Signature form
The AP:Detail-Signature join form joins data from the AP:Detail and AP:Signature
forms. You link this form to your applications approval request form to create a
three-way join form when you add approvals to your application.
NOTE
If you change the status of a request from an applications three-way join form, the
change is not reflected immediately on Approval Central. Users must click on any
link on Approval Central or refresh the page to see the change. To make such a
change visible automatically, application developers must provide workflow that
sends the refresh event to the Approval Central form on the Modify or Close event
of the three-way join form. Without such workflow, the Approval Central form
cannot know about changes to a request, because the status change activity does
not occur on the form.
Approval processes
An approval process is the routing of an approval request through a defined series
of steps until the process is done. The approval process requires signatures and is
governed by the approval server rules and behavior. You can use the approval
server to automate any business process, and you can customize the process to
implement the operational guidelines of your organization. By using the approval
server, you can make sure that any process follows well-defined rules, that the
right people are notified and the proper signatures are obtained, and that you can
provide an audit trail of requests and the decisions made by approvers.
The approval server provides four types of processes. See Approval process
types on page 75.
Approval rules augment the standard behavior of the approval server, and
govern how an approval request is handled at various stages of the approval
process. You use rules to retrieve and save approval data and to make decisions
during the process, such as who the next approver is, whether more signatures
are needed, and whether the routing process is complete.
The approval server provides 13 types of approval rules. See Approval server
rules on page 82.
Submit
Request Someone
Requester Another Entirely
Approver Arbitrary
Requester 1 Requester
not approved More Information
Self Check Request (optional)
Requester
2
Next Approver
approved Approver Response
Yes
3
More
approvers? Approval
Cycle
5 No 4
Process Completion Approved
Done Check
Rejected
NOTE
The difference between complete and done is important. When a request is
complete, it has been routed to all approvers. Even when routing is complete, all
required approvers have not necessarily responded. The request is done when all
required approvers have approved or rejected the request.
Parent-Child process
The Parent-Child process type uses the relationships between requesters and
approvers, and between approvers and other approvers, in conjunction with a Get
Next Approver rule, to determine the routing of an approval request. You define
these relationships in a signature authority form.
The Management Cost Authorization process in the Lunch Scheduler sample
application is an example of a Parent-Child rule. It uses the Manager Login Name
field on the AP-Sample:Signature Authority form to define the parent login
name of each sample user.
In a process where each approver has a defined relationship to the next approver,
such as employee to manager and manager to director, the most appropriate
process type is usually Parent-Child. In this type of process, the approval request
is routed up an approval hierarchy from the child (requester or previous
approver with lower authority) to the parent (approver with higher authority).
A manager-employee relationship is often the hierarchy represented with a
Parent-Child approval process.
Level process
The Level process type uses a hierarchical set of organizational levels, in
conjunction with a Get Next Approver rule, to determine the routing of an
approval request. The process administrator defines the organizational levels and
their members in a signature authority form.
The Major Account Level Approval process in the Lunch Scheduler sample
application is an example of a Level process. It uses the Account Approval Level
field of the AP-Sample:Signature Authority form to define organizational levels
and the sample users who belong to them.
If anyone in a certain organizational position, such as a job level, can approve a
request, the Level process type is often the best fit. In a Level process, the approval
server delivers the request to all approvers in the next level. When the defined
number of approvers in any level have approved the request, the approval server
routes the request to the next level.
Ad Hoc process
In an Ad Hoc process, no Get Next Approver rule is used, and the process
administrator does not define approver or organizational relationships. Instead,
the requester and the approvers designate the next approver or a set of approvers
while working with the request. The requester enters at least one approver when
creating the request. Approvers can add additional approvers when they respond
to the request.
The Issue Approval process in the Get Agreement sample application is an
example of an Ad Hoc process.
NOTE
An Ad Hoc process is not the same as an ad hoc override. Ad hoc overrides allow
specific approvers to alter a predetermined routing. An Ad Hoc process includes
no predetermined routing. See Get next approver manually on page 86.
When entering approvers, users must enter the exact AR System login ID of the
next approver. To prevent typographical errors and allow the user to select from a
list, the AR System administrator should construct field menus containing the
appropriate approvers for an Ad Hoc process. See the Form and Application
Objects Guide, Creating menus, page 299.
Rule-Based process
The Parent-Child, Level, and Ad Hoc process types are partially preconfigured
and, therefore, are relatively simple to implement. A Rule-Based process is similar
to a Parent-Child process, except that a Rule-Based process relies on rules that you
create to define the relationships between approvers. This option enables you to
define a routing method that allows more complexity than predefined
relationships. However, a Rule-Based process requires more thought and work to
implement.
The Special Overdue Approval process in the Lunch Scheduler sample application
is an example of a Rule-Based process.
NOTE
Using Enable Preview to determine the action date might increase the processing
time for a new request due to the steps required to retrieve the list of future
approvers.
When working with notifications and escalations, make sure that the appropriate
notification and escalation types on AP:Admin-ServerSettings are enabled.
2
Prep. Get
Next Approver
Get Next
Approver
Parameterized
Get Next Ad hoc?
Approver No
Yes
Invalid
Validate
Approver?
Requester
Valid
Submit Request
Signature
line error
Approver
1 Response
No Get (Wait for)
Auto Approval? Authority Correction
Yes
Signature
Get Accumulator
Yes Authority No More
Self
approvers?
Approval
Cycle Rejected
Statistical
Self Override
approval?
No Yes 3
5 Approved
Process Yes No Outstanding
Done signatures?
Get Authority
Self Check stageRules that test for automatic approval and self
approval
The approval server uses the Self Check stage of an approval process to prevent
unnecessary routing. Rule types that you can use in the Self Check stage include:
Auto Approval
Get Authority or Get Authority Self
Self Approval
The Auto Approval and Self Approval rule types use different methods to
determine whether the requester has sufficient authority to approve his or her own
request. The Get Authority and Get Authority Self rules gather data to be used by
the Self Approval rule.
Submit Request
Requester 1 No 2
Auto Approval? Get
Authority Next
Approver
Self No
Approval?
Process Yes
Done
NOTE
A third type of get authority rule, called Get Authority Regular, is performed only
during completion processing. See Get Authority and Get Authority Regular
rules on page 91.
Figure 5-7 illustrates how rules and ad hoc approver entries are used in the Next
Approver stage of an approval process.
Prep. Get
Next Approver
Get Next
Approver
Parameterized
Get Next Ad hoc?
Approver No
Yes
Invalid
Validate
Approver?
Submit Request
Valid
(Wait for)
Approved Correction Approver
Response
Yes
Approved
More
approvers? Approval
Cycle
No
Process Completion
Done Check
Rejected
NOTE
Process administrators should set up notifications to indicate when an erroneous
ad hoc selection is waiting for correction.
The approval server sets the signature value automatically, depending on the
approvers response. You do not have to define a rule to implement this behavior.
By default, the approvers response determines whether the request passes into the
Completion Check stage, or remains in the Approver Response stage.
ApprovedWhen an approver approves a request, the request passes to the
Completion Check stage, where the approval server determines whether more
signatures are required. See Completion Check stageRules that test for
completion on page 91.
RejectedIf an approver rejects a request, the request moves to the Process
Done stage. No more routing occurs, and the request is withdrawn from
approvers who have placed the request on hold or requested more information.
HoldWhen an approver places a request on hold, the approval server changes
the signature line to Hold, but no other action occurs. Process administrators
should establish escalations to prevent requests in Hold status from being
neglected indefinitely.
More informationIf an approver requests more information, the approval
server changes the approval status to More Information, but no other action
occurs within the approval processing for that approver. The approval server
allows an approver to hold, approve, or reject a request without waiting for the
More Information response. When this occurs, the More Information request is
terminated.
You can override the default behavior of the approval server in this stage. To do
so, you use the following rule types:
Signature Accumulator
Statistical Override
Table 5-2: Process and signature considerations in the Statistical Override rule
Process type Signatures considered Approving requests Rejecting requests
Level Only signatures for Preempts the approval server Preempts the approval server to reject
the current level to proceed to the next level. the request and stop the processing.
Parent-Child All signatures, at all Preempts the approval server Preempts the approval server to reject
times to proceed to proceed to next the request and stop the processing.
parent.
Ad Hoc All signatures, at all Preempts the approval server Preempts the approval server to reject
times to approve the request. the request and stop the processing.
Rule-Based All signatures, at all Preempts the approval server Preempts the approval server to reject
times to proceed to the next set of the request and stop the processing.
approvers.
WARNING
If you define Statistical Override rules, you must also define a rule to approve or
reject the process if no pending signatures exist. If a rule is not defined to handle
this condition, the approval server considers this as an error condition.
Figure 5-8 illustrates how the approval server uses both types of statistical
decision-making rules in the Approver Response stage.
Approver
Response
(Approval/
Rejection/
Cancellation)
Stat No
Override Default
Rules? Logic
Yes
Signature
Accumulator Statistical
Rules
Statistical
Override
No More Yes
Preempt? Signatures?
Yes No
No Yes Default
Reject Approve?
Logic
Statistical Override rules evaluate the data gathered for the active signature record
by a Signature Accumulator rule or by the approval server. If the Statistical
Override rules can be based solely on the statistical data that the approval server
gathers by default, you do not need to define a Signature Accumulator rule.
The following statistical data is available by default:
Total Signatures
Total Approved
Total Rejected
Total Pending
Total Hold
Total More Information
Total Canceled
Total Closed
Total Error
Examples of Statistical Override rules are included in the sample applications.
They are Issue Statistical Approval and Issue Statistical Boundary Condition in the
Get Agreement Sample application.
For information about using these examples, see Example of decision-making
rules in a sample application on page 133.
To create Statistical Override rules, see Defining Statistical Override rules on
page 132.
Completion rules
Completion rules test whether sufficient authorization exists to stop routing an
approval request. A process is complete when the approval server has routed the
request to all required approvers even if they have not yet all responded.
No CompletionIf the Completion rule condition is not met, the Get Next
Approver rules are performed and the request is routed to the next approver. If
no new approvers are found by the Get Next Approver rules, the approval
server checks the Approval Success field of the Process Definition form.
If this field is set to No More Approvers, the process is done with a status of
Approved.
If the Approval Success field is set to Completion Rule, the process is done
with an error state, because no more approvers exist and no Completion rule
has succeeded.
Successful CompletionIf the Completion rule condition is met, the request is
not routed to any further approvers. If outstanding signatures exist when the
routing Completion rules are fulfilled, the request remains active until either all
approvers approve or one rejects the request.
A process that requires a fixed number of signatures will complete successfully
when the process exhausts the Approver List. For example, you can create a
process that completes routing when any five approvers respond, instead of
completing with one approver of a specific authority.
Requester Requester
not approved
Self Check
Next Approver
Requester Approver Response
approved
Yes
Signature
No More Accumulator
approvers? Approval
Cycle
No
Rejected
Process Statistical
Done Override?
Completion
Approved
Yes
Yes
No Get Authority
Outstanding
signatures?
Get Authority
Regular
Chained processes
You can initiate a new approval process automatically when the first process is
done. For example, if a manager approves a new computer purchase, the IT
department can start another chained approval process that determines the exact
model of computer to buy. For a description of chained processes in the Lunch
Scheduler application, see Chaining approval processes on page 147.
Approver fields
This section describes how the approval server manages the sizes of approver
fields and a utility that is used for this purpose.
You can increase the length of these fields to the maximum limit permitted by the
database (VARCHAR limit) by manually executing an approval server utility. See The
apchgschema utility on page 95.
In release 7.5.00 or earlier, the approval server only checks the size of the
Approvers field at startup, and enforces this length as the maximum limit for
approver names. If the default limits are insufficient, you need to increase the field
lengths manually.
To use longer approver names with previews, make the following changes:
For regular previews, increase the length of the Approvers and Original
Approvers fields on AP:PreviewSignatures.
For real-time previews, increase the length of the Approvers field on
AP:PreviewInfo.
NOTE
The apchgschema utility increases the lengths of the approver fields provided that
the current lengths are not already set to the maximum VARCHAR limit, or to
unrestricted or 0 (zero).
In case of the Member List field, if the maximum length supported by the database
is less than 512 characters, the current field length is not modified. This ensures
that the corresponding data remains intact.
Creating a process
To create a new process, click Create on the Process tab of the AP:Administration
form. This opens the AP:Process Definition form in New mode.
For more information, see AP:Process Definition on page 231.
AP:Process Definition contains the following tabs:
BasicUse this tab to define basic information about the process, including the
process name and type, the associated form, and approval success criteria.
ConfigurationUse this tab to specify:
Process intervals to calculate the Action Date for a request
Menus to generate lists of users that appear when creating a More
Information request (by adding a question or comment), reassigning a
request, and assigning a request to an ad hoc approver
The mandate for rejection justification and the application forms field on
which to push an approvers input
Signature Escalations (Normal, Urgent, and Low)Use these tabs to schedule
notifications and automatic actions for pending requests.
More Info EscalationsUse this tab to schedule notifications for requests in the
More Information state.
Administrative InfoThe fields on this tab contain the change history and help
text (if any) for the process. Use the Help Text field to document the process.
In most cases, you need only one process for your approval request, but it is
possible to create multiple processes. For an example of an application that uses
three separate approval processes, see the Sample Lunch Scheduler form that is
described in Sample process descriptions on page 146.
NOTE
Before you can create a process, the approval request form that you link your
process to must exist on the AR System server, and must appear in the list of forms
on the Form tab of AP:Administration. To link the approval request form for your
application to the approval server, see Adding the approval request form to
AP:Administration on page 157.
To create a process
1 Open the AP:Administration form.
See Using the approval server Administration form on page 24.
2 On the Process tab, and click Create to open the AP:Process Definition form in New
mode.
3 In the Basic tab, specify appropriate values in the various fields.
See AP:Process Definition on page 231.
4 Click Save.
Figure 6-1 on page 100 depicts the basic process definition for the sample
Management Cost Authorization process.
NOTE
The Process Due interval is required as a minimum for the action date feature.
If this field is left blank, no action date is associated with the process or its
corresponding requests.
4 Enter a number in the Signature Due field, and select what this number represents
from the Unit list.
For example, if you want every signature to be due in two days, enter 2 in the
Interval field, and select Days from the Unit list.
5 Enter a number in the Buffer Period field, and select what this number represents
from the Unit list.
This value is used as a delta to be deducted from all other intervals, except
Signature Due, to derive the minimum of all the required process intervals.
6 In the Enable Preview field, select Yes if you want to consider future approvers
when calculating the Signature Due date. Select No if you want if you want to use
the value in the Signature Due field only.
7 Click Save.
Besides these process intervals, you also need to specify certain values in the
Signature Escalation tabs and on AP:Notification and AP:Admin-ServerSettings.
NOTE
If you do not enter parameters for either urgent or low priority notifications, the
parameters you enter for normal priority are used. You can use the urgent or low
priority sections to enter only parameters that are different than those you set for
normal priority.
4 Select or enter the names of the business calendar and the holiday calendar you
want to use for signature escalation notifications.
These names must match existing schedule names from the Business Time
Workdays or Business Time Holidays forms. For information about configuring
business times, see the Configuration Guide, Using Business Time in the
AR System server, page 215.
5 To change the state of an approval request automatically if no signature action
occurs after a specified interval, enter the Automatic Action parameters:
a Enter a number in the After Interval field to indicate when you want the state
changed, and select what this number represents from the Unit list.
For example, if you want the state to change two days after the approval request
enters a certain state, enter 2 in the After Interval field, and select Days from
the Unit list.
b In the Change State field, use the drop-down list to select the state that you want
to apply to the approval request.
The options are Pending, Approved, or Rejected.
If you set these parameters, approvers can see the resulting date and time after
which the state of the approval request changes automatically. This reflects on
AP:Show-Detail > Action Date field and Approval Central > Action Date column.
For more information, see AP:Show-Detail on page 243 and Approval Central
on page 255.
6 To send notifications when a signature line has been outstanding (in any state) for
too long, specify the Notification: Still Outstanding parameters:
a Enter a number in the First Interval field to indicate when you want the first
notification sent, and select what this number represents from the Unit list.
b If you want a second notification sent, enter a number in the Repeat Interval
field and select what this number represents from the Unit list.
This reflects on Approval Central > Past Due requests > Action Date column. For
more information, see Approval Central on page 255.
7 If you want to send notifications when the approval request remains in a certain
state (Pending, Error, Hold, or More Information) too long, specify the
Notification: Still in State parameters:
a Enter a number in the First Interval field for the desired state to indicate when
you want the first notification sent, and select what this number represents from
the Unit list.
b If you want a second notification sent, enter a number in the appropriate Repeat
Interval field and select what this number represents from the Unit list.
To modify a process
1 Open the AP:Administration form. See Using the approval server Administration
form on page 24.
2 Click the Process tab, and click Refresh.
3 Select the process from the list and click View.
The Process Definition form opens in Modify mode, displaying the entry for the
selected process.
4 Modify the appropriate process fields as needed. See Creating a process on
page 98 for information about field values.
5 Click Save.
Deleting processes
This section describes how to delete an existing process.
NOTE
The delete operation is permanent and cannot be undone. When you delete a
process, all of its associated rules are deactivated.
To delete a process
1 Open the AP:Administration form and click the Process tab.
2 Click Refresh to populate the list of processes.
3 Select the process you want to delete.
4 Click Delete.
5 Click Yes when prompted to confirm the deletion.
The process is deleted and no longer appears in the list of processes.
NOTE
If you need to rename a process or approval form, you must also edit any related
workflow, such as the filter that starts the process, to correct the process name.
Defining roles
The approval server can route a request to a role instead of an individual. When
you use a role, the request is routed to all members of the role. You specify whether
one member of the role can approve a request or whether all members must
approve it.
The Overdue Oversight role is an example of the use of roles in the Lunch
Scheduler sample application. It works with the Rule-Based process to route
approvals for an overdue account to the members of the Overdue Oversight role.
To define a role
1 Open the AP:Administration form. See Using the approval server Administration
form on page 24.
2 Click the Role tab, and click Create.
The AP:Role form appears in New mode.
NOTE
If you include a role in the member list of another role, the If Multiple Approvers
option of the parent role will take precedence. For example, suppose that Role A
is defined with If Multiple Approvers set to All must sign and you include Role
A in the member list of Role B. Role B is defined with If Multiple Approvers set to
One must sign. In this example, the approval server uses the settings for Role B.
5 In the Status field, select Active or Inactive. Active is the default value.
6 In the Member List field, type the names of the role members.
You must enter valid user names or role names, and separate entries with a
semicolon or a hard return. Click the Text Box button to open an expanded text
box. This field has a maximum length of 255 characters.
7 Click Save.
This section describes how to create and modify rules in BMC Remedy Approval
Server (approval server).
The following topics are provided:
Using the Rule tab on AP:Administration (page 110)
Creating a rule (page 110)
Defining approval rules (page 114)
Working with existing rules (page 141)
Creating a rule
To create a new rule, click Create on the Rule tab of the AP:Administration form.
This opens the AP:Rule Definition form in New mode.
NOTE
To create a rule, you must first create the process that the rule will support. See
Chapter 6, Defining an approval process.
AP:Rule Definition consists of three tabbed views (depending on the type of rule):
BasicThe fields on this tab store identification and execution information
about the rule, as well as a Run If qualification statement, if any.
Set FieldsFor rules that include a Set Fields action, the fields on this tab
specify the action to be executed by the rule when a transaction passes the
qualification statement.
Administrative InformationThe fields on this tab contain change history and
help text (if any) for the rule. Use the help text field to describe the purpose of
the rule, or any other information helpful to process administrators.
To complete the fields on the Basic tab that are common to all rules
1 Open the AP:Administration form, and click the Rule tab.
2 In the Rule Name field, enter a name for the rule.
Rule names must be unique and can be as long as 30 characters. For ease of
administration, use a rule name that reflects the application or process, the rule
type, the rule function, or some combination.
3 In the For Process field, select the process name that this rule will support from the
list.
The processes that appear on this menu are those you have defined in the Process
tab. When you select the process name, AR System automatically populates the
Process Instance ID field.
4 In the Rule Type field, select the appropriate rule type from the list. For example,
if you are creating a Get Next Approver rule, select Get Next Approver.
When you select a rule type, the Rule Definition form changes to display the fields
appropriate for the rule type. Fields that apply to the rule type have a white field
box. Fields that do not apply are gray.
5 In the Order field, enter an execution order number. The default value is 0.
This number determines the rule sequence when two or more of the same rule type
exist for a specific process.
6 In the Status field, select either Active or Inactive. The default value is Active.
Inactive rules do not run when the process runs. While you are developing a set of
rules for a process, it might be helpful to use the Inactive status. When you are
ready to test your rules, change the Status field to Active.
NOTE
If you save a rule with the Status field empty, the rule is saved as Active.
7 In the Assignee Group Permissions field, the Public group appears by default. If
you use this field for multi-tenancy support, create workflow to populate this field
with the correct assignee group name. You do not need to change this setting when
creating the rule.
The approval server supports multi-tenancy for use by application service
providers. The Assignee Group Permissions field is field 112, and appears on all
the approval server forms. The field 112 value from records created in the
AP:Details form is used automatically in all the other approval server forms, for
example, AP:Signature, AP:More Information, and so on.
8 If the rule requires a qualifying condition to control execution, enter the condition
in the Qualification area of the Basic tab. This field is labeled Rule or Run If,
depending on the rule type. Process Done rules use a radio button field to set the
execution condition.
You can type the condition statement or you can build it by using the qualification
bar and list. When the qualification is met, the rule actions execute. You can use
currency, date, and time fields in Run If and Rule qualification statements.
For more information, see the Workflow Objects Guide, Building qualifications and
expressions, page 49. For specific examples pertaining to various rule types, see
the discussion of each rule type in this section.
9 Click Save.
Figure 7-2: The Set Fields tab for Get Authority rule with a query
NOTE
Auto Approval rules cannot use values retrieved from forms other than the current
request. To retrieve values from another form, use a Self Approval rule. See
Defining Self Approval rules on page 118.
If an Auto Approval rules condition is met, the request is done and moves directly
to the Process Done stage. When an approval request meets the criteria in an Auto
Approval rule, the approval server sets the rule state to Approved in the Detail
record. This action activates an Approval Process Done rule.
Ad Hoc processes
Ad Hoc processes do not use the Get Next Approver rule type, because an Ad Hoc
process expects that users will add the next approver. See Ad Hoc process on
page 78.
All Must SignA separate signature record is created for each individual in the
approver list, including individuals within a role. In this case, all of the
approvers retrieved by the Get Next Approver rule must act upon the approval
request.
ClearLeaves this field blank.
4 In the Next Approver Rule Is field, select a value from the menu.
This field value determines how the approver list is constructed when multiple Get
Next Approver rules exist in the process. It is often used in a Rule-Based process
that uses set of Get Next Approver rules to build an approver list.
AdditiveIndicates that any name or role this rule assigns to the approver list
is added to the existing approver list, and further rules are to be processed.
EndingIndicates that any name or role this rule assigns to the approver list is
added to the existing approver list, but no further rules are to be processed.
ExclusiveIndicates that this rule assigns the entire approver list, and no
further rules are processed. In addition, if a previous rule created an approver
list, that list is ignored.
ClearLeaves this field blank.
5 Enter the rule condition in the Run If text box (optional).
If used, this field defines a conditional statement that controls whether the rule
runs. You can type the conditional statement or you can build it by using the
qualification bar and list. See the Workflow Objects Guide, About Run If qualifications
and expressions, page 50.
6 Click the Set Fields tab.
7 In the Set Fields Type field, select the appropriate action type. See Using the Set
Fields tab on the Rule Definition form on page 113.
8 For a query, select a form name from the From Form menu.
This value indicates in which form to search for the query.
9 In the On Server field, select the server where the form is located.
CurrentThe form exists on the current server.
AlternateThe form exists on another server. In this case, type the server name
where the form is located in the Server field.
10 Depending on the action type, enter the qualification statement or command line
in the Qualification area.
11 In the Fields Data area, enter the name of the field or fields to receive the data in
the Field Name column, and a value statement or the name of each source form
field in the Value column.
12 Click Save.
10 Depending on the action type, enter the qualification statement or command line
in the Qualification area.
11 In the Fields Data area, enter the name of the field or fields to receive the data in
the Field Name column, and a value statement or the name of each source form
field in the Value column.
12 Click Save.
Step 1 A user enters an approval request in a process that includes an approval hierarchy,
such as a Parent-Child or Level process.
Step 2 When working with the approval request, the first approver uses the preview
feature to view the existing approvers for the request, for example, by clicking a
button on the approval form. The approver decides to add Michel LeTourneau as
an approver at a future level, for example, level 4.
Step 3 The approver uses functionality added to the approval request form, such as a
button that opens an Add Approvers form, to enter the level and the approver
name. When the approver saves his or her changes, a filter runs that captures these
values and sends an Add-PGNA-Values application command using the values to
the approval server.
For example:
Application-Command Approval Add-PGNA-Values -o My Param Rule
-l 4/Michel LeTourneau
Step 4 The approval server receives the command, and stores the data in the Param Data
field on the AP:Detail record.
Step 5 After the approval server executes the Get Next Approver rules, it executes
Parameterized Get Next Approver rules. While executing the parameterized rules,
it retrieves the values from the Param Data field in the detail record. In this case, it
retrieves
4/Michel LeTourneau and parses this into %1=4 and %2=Michel
LeTourneau
Step 6 The approval server replaces the variables in the Parameterized rule with these
values:
Run If qualification$Level$ = 4
Set Fields$Next Approver$ = Michel LeTourneau
Step 7 If the condition matches, the Set Fields action is executed. If the condition never
matches and the regular Get Next Approver rules do not return any approvers, the
approval server checks for the Guaranteed Add flag. If this is set to yes, the
parameterized rule executes, even though the Run If condition is not satisfied.
WARNING
Approver names in Validate Approver rules are case sensitive. Make sure
approver names are entered correctly by providing a menu of names for requesters
to select from. See the Form and Application Objects Guide, Creating menus,
page 299.
Rule functionality
When one of the sample approvers responds to a request, the sample statistical
decision-making rules run. Signature Accumulator rules run before Statistical
Override rules. In this case, they both have a Run If condition that causes the Set
Fields action to occur only when the approvers signature is set to Approved. (If
the approvers signature is set to Rejected, these rules do not run and the default
approval server behavior causes the request to be rejected.)
The rule Issue Retrieve Signature Limit has execution order 0, so it runs first. It
retrieves the Signature Dollar Limit for the current approver, and sets the value
in a temporary field (Temp Decimal 1) on the Detail form.
For this rule, the Set Fields qualification used is:
'Login Name' = $Approvers$
This qualification retrieves the signature authority amount for the current
approver by matching the current approvers login name to the Login Name
field on the AP-Sample:Signature Authority form.
The rule Issue Increment Signature Limit has execution order 1, so it runs next.
It increments another temporary field in the Detail form with the current
cumulative signature dollar value for all approvers who have responded.
The example Statistical Override rules run after the Signature Accumulator rules
are complete.
The rule Issue Statistical Approval has execution order 0. The Run If condition
causes it to run only when the Approver response is set to Approved.
It checks the current cumulative signature authority. If the current cumulative
signature authority is greater than $500, the Set Fields action sets Statistical
Override to Approved.
This approves the request, regardless of whether all approvers have
responded. In this way, the rule preempts the default approval server
behavior and approves the request. In this case, the other Statistical Override
rule does not run because the request is done.
If the current cumulative signature value is less than $500, the Set Fields
action does not occur, and the request is not yet done.
The rule Issue Statistical Boundary Condition has execution order 1. It runs only
if the first Statistical Override rule did not result in approving the request.
If signatures are still pending, the Set Fields action does not occur, and the
approval process continues.
If a hold exists or a More Information request is pending, the Set Fields action
does not occur, and the approval process continues.
If approvers remain, and the current cumulative signature authority is not
greater than $500, the Set Field action sets Statistical Override to Rejected, and
the request is done.
These two Statistical Override rules work together to assure that the approval
process always ends with the request set to either Approved or Rejected.
NOTE
This example assumes that the request is for an amount greater than $500. The Get
Agreement sample application does not include a field for the amount of the
request. In an actual approval process, you would also need a field to gather the
amount of the request, and a Run If condition to test the amount.
When the Run If condition has been met, the preempted decision is specified on
the Set Fields tab.
4 In the Field Data area, enter the appropriate Field Name and Value to change the
status of the approval request.
5 Click Save to save the rule.
Rule trigger
To modify a rule
1 Open the AP:Administration form and click the Rule tab.
2 Select the rule to be modified, and click View.
The AP:Rule Definition form opens in Modify mode, showing the current values
for the rule.
3 Modify the rule as needed. For specific information about fields in the rule, see the
Defining topic for the rule type.
4 Click Save.
Deleting rules
This section describes how to delete an existing rule.
NOTE
The delete operation is permanent and cannot be undone. Check for any rule
dependencies before deleting a rule. For example, Self Approval and Completion
rules might depend on a Get Authority, Get Authority Regular, or Get Authority
Self rule. If the Get Authority rule is deleted, the dependent rule will no longer
function as designed.
To delete a rule
1 Open the AP:Administration form and click the Rule tab.
2 Select the rule to be deleted from the list, and click Delete.
3 Click Yes when prompted to confirm the deletion.
The rule is deleted and no longer appears in the list of rules.
NOTE
The Lunch Scheduler and Get Agreement sample applications are not actually
packaged as AR System applications. They consist of a related set of workflow
objects, including the approval request form, active links and filters, approval
processes, and approval rules.
When using Lunch Scheduler, the requester specifies information about the
customer, the restaurant, and the number of attendees. These choices populate
fields containing details about the total costs and information about the customers
relationship with the company.
Lunch Scheduler includes three different approval processes chained together and
uses three different filters with Run Process commands to start these processes. For
more information, see the Workflow Objects Guide, Using Run Process and
$PROCESS$ commands, page 257.
The chained processes are:
Management Cost AuthorizationThis is a managerial approval based on the
total cost of the lunch. It is a Parent-Child process, so the request is routed to a
hierarchical series of managers until a manager with sufficient cost authority
approves it. The filter AP-Sample:Start Cost Approval starts this process.
Major Account Level ApprovalThis process runs if the account is a major or
enterprise account. It is a Level process that causes the request to be routed to
the major account and enterprise account teams. The filter AP-Sample:Start
Level Approval starts this process.
Special Overdue ApprovalThis process implements a special review of the
request if the account is currently overdue. It is a Rule-Based process. The filter
AP-Sample:Start Overdue Approv starts this process.
When requests are submitted in this application, they follow the appropriate
approval processes. The processes enforce the business rules of the company, and
the approval data gathered provides an auditable record of the business lunch
activity at the company.
NOTE
The Questions, Comments with attachments, Notes, and Multi-process preview
features are available out-of-the-box with this sample application. For more
information, see AP:Show-Detail on page 271.
Step 1 The Management Cost Authorization process runs first because the filter is
configured to execute upon submission of the request.
In the Process Done stage of this process, the Approval Process Done rules
populate the Approval Workspace field of the Lunch Scheduler request form.
For example, if the request is approved, the Approval Process Done rule enters
Cost-Approved in this field.
Step 2 Because the request form was modified, the filters for the two chained processes
are executed.
Step 3 If the Major Account Level Approval process runs, its Approval Process Done
rules again modify the request form. This causes the filters for the two chained
processes to fire again. In this case:
If the Level process completed with an approval, and the request is marked to
indicate that the account is overdue, the filters Run If condition causes Special
Overdue Approval process to run.
If the Level process completed with any other result (such as rejection), or if the
request does not indicate that the account is overdue, the Special Overdue
Approval process does not run, and the overall approval process is complete.
These three steps explain how the three processes are chained together to create
the overall approval process in the Lunch Scheduler application.
In addition to the filters that start the three processes, a fourth filter, AP-
Sample:Test Level Approval, runs whenever the approval request is modified.
This filter runs only after the Approval Workspace field is marked Cost-
Approved, and if the Account Type is not major or enterprise. The filter
performs a set fields action that sets Level-Approved in the Approval
Workspace field. This assures that the Approval Process Done rules function the
same, even though the Level process did not actually run.
Sample users
The approval server sample applications include records for a set of sample users
that are preconfigured for testing the Lunch Scheduler application.
NOTE
Although you do not need to be an AR System administrator to set up and manage
approval processes, only an AR System administrator must carry out most of the
tasks described in this section.
NOTE
Be sure to create only one three-way join form for your application.
Table 9-2: Property settings for the Status-Dtl field of the two-way join form
Category Property Value
Display Field Access Read / Write
Database ID 13191
b Select the Request field (not Request ID), and enter 10051 in the ID property.
6 Choose Form > Form Properties > Permissions.
7 Move the Public group to the Permissions field, change the group permission type
to Hidden, and click OK.
8 Save and name the join form.
9 Click Yes or OK in response to the AR System warning messages.
4 In the New Join Form wizard, follow the prompts to take the following actions:
Primary FormSelect your approval request form as the primary form, and
click Next.
Secondary FormSelect AP:Detail-Signature as the secondary form, and click
Next.
Join PropertiesSelect the Inner join type, the appropriate field positioning
and inheritance options, and click Next.
Primary Form Field SelectionSelect Default Administrator View, move all
fields to Selected Fields, and click Next.
Secondary Form Field SelectionSelect Default Administrator View, move all
fields to Selected Fields, and click Finish.
The new join form appears. Your users use this form when working with the
details of an approval, so the layout and appearance of this form are important.
5 Hide or remove from view any fields that users do not need to see, such as most of
the fields from the AP:Detail-Signature form.
TIP
Use the Outline tab in BMC Remedy Developer Studio to locate and select a field.
Then choose Layout > Bring To Front to see the field if necessary. Use tabs in a
panel field to display only those fields that you want users to view or modify.
Running arjoinfix
After the join forms are created, run the arjoinfix (UNIX) or arjoinfix.exe
(Windows) utility once for each approval request form that you connect to the
approval server. This utility modifies the join qualifications to make sure that your
application communicates properly with the approval server. The arjoinfix
utility is installed in the same directory as the approval server.
TIP
On Windows, the -i parameter is optional. When the approval server is installed
on a Windows server, you can use Start > Run to navigate to and run
arjoinfix.exe.
TIP
The arjoinfix utility might return authentication errors on an AR System server
that is configured to run with a specific TCP port. If such errors occur, set the
ARTCPPORT environment variable to the appropriate port number and try again.
NOTE
You only need to use the option 2 of arjoinfix when you upgrade your
AR System server and approval server to release 7.x.xx from an earlier release. See
Performing required three-way join form updates on page 176.
You must also create at least one filter that will start the approval process when a
requester submits an entry in the approval request form. The filter conditions
should cause the filter to run on submit (and possibly on modify). In the If Action
tab, enter a Run Process action to run the New-Details application command. This
initiates the approval process.
For some examples of filters that start an approval process, see the filters included
in the sample applications, such as AP-Sample2:Start Approvals, AP-Sample:Start
Cost Approval, and so on. For information about defining filters, see the Form and
Application Objects Guide. For details about application commands, see Appendix
B, Application commands.
Test your processes, rules, and filters together to verify that the approval workflow
operates correctly and covers all possible outcomes of the approval process.
When the normal approval cycle has been overridden by an approver or the
Process Administrator
Creating notifications
You can configure approval server notifications to be delivered by email, by
BMC Remedy Alert, by the users default notification mechanism, or by workflow.
To create an approval notification, use the following procedures:
Verify that the events for which you want the approval server to send
notifications are enabled in the AP:Admin-ServerSettings form. If notifications
are not enabled on this form, they are not sent regardless of other approval
server settings. See Configuring server settings on page 27.
Configure the approval server to send approver notifications using the
procedure Defining an email or BMC Remedy Alert notification on page 159.
Configure the delay before escalations when no activity occurs using the
procedure Creating signature escalations on page 101.
Configure notifications for More Information requests using the procedure
Creating More Information escalations on page 103.
The AP:Notification form opens in New mode, with the Basic tab selected, as
shown in Figure 9-1.
NOTE
If you choose the Before Reassign option, a notification is sent to the approvers
who are being replaced.
8 In the Qualification area, enter a condition statement to help control whether the
notification runs, if necessary.
The Additional Conditions field enables you to add conditions to the setting in the
Notify On field.
9 Click the Details tab.
AlertUsers are notified when they run BMC Remedy Alert. For more
information about BMC Remedy Alert, see BMC Remedy User Help.
EmailUsers are notified by email.
If the contents of the Send To field do not match an existing user or group
definition, the system interprets the field contents as a literal address and sends
the notification to that address by SMTP mail (UNIX) or MS-Exchange
(Windows). When you use this option, you can send notifications to users not
using the AR System, to an alias for a group, or to an email address representing
a program.
User DefaultUsers are notified by the default notification method defined in
the User record. If the User record does not contain a default notification
method, BMC Remedy Alert is used.
WorkflowTriggers a filter guide that fires on the required event and sends the
notification.
To use this option, you must add the appropriate workflow to your application.
See Creating workflow-based notifications on page 165.
11 Select a Priority for the notification from 0 to 10.
This enables users to sort notifications in order of importance.
12 Select an option for the Send To field, which indicates where to send the
notification.
Notifications are sent to users or roles, or the approval server can write to a form
field.
Notify ListSend to the default notify list for the selected Notify On option. See
Table 9-3 on page 160.
OtherSpecify an individual, a group, a list of individuals or groups, or a field
reference to a field containing individuals or groups.
13 Enter a Subject line for the notification message.
14 To include field values in the subject line, use the Subject drop-down list.
The Subject panel lists fields from the applications three-way join form. Select the
field whose value you want to include in the subject line, and click OK.
15 To attach more field information to the notification, use the Additional Fields field.
Enter field names in the text box or select field names from the drop-down list.
16 To include field values in the message text, use the Message drop-down list.
17 For email or User Default notifications, click the Email tab.
The fields in the Email tab are the same as those used when you create an Email or
User Default notify mechanism in a Notify filter action. For information about
using email notifications and configuring BMC Remedy Email Engine, see the
BMC Remedy Email Engine Guide.
The menus in the Fields columns on this tab contain fields from the three-way join
form. You can select from the Fields and Keywords menus to use variables in all
the fields on this tab.
18 In the Mailbox Name field, enter the name of an outgoing mailbox that is
configured in the AR System Email Mailbox Configuration form. This field is not
required if you use the default outgoing mailbox.
You can use a field or a keyword to get the mailbox name. The mailbox name must
correspond to an outgoing mailbox configured in the AR System Email Mailbox
Configuration form.
19 Enter the appropriate information in the From, Reply To, CC, and BCC fields.
You can use AR System user names, AR System groups, an email address, or a
field or keyword variable. To use an email address, include the email domain
name (for example, Joe.User@acme.com) or a keyword (for example,
$USER$@acme.com). If you make multiple entries in these fields, separate the
entries by hard returns.
The Email Engine uses these fields as follows:
FromIndicates the sender.
Reply ToSpecifies the reply-to address if the recipient replies to the
notification message.
CCSpecifies recipients of the notification.
BCCSpecifies hidden recipients of the notification. The names of recipients in
the BCC field do not appear to other recipients of the message.
20 In the Organization field, enter a company name, an organization, a keyword, or a
field reference to an organization name.
This name appears in the Organization tag of the email header.
21 In the Header, Content, and Footer fields specify the names of the email templates
to use for the header, content, and footer of the email notification.
22 (Optional) Click the Administrative Information tab (optional) and enter Help Text
that describes this notification.
23 Click Save.
NOTE
To use similar buttons in your application, you must add them to the appropriate
form, and create the workflow to implement them. One way to do this is to copy
the workflow objects from the sample applications.
This section describes how to create a Manage More Information button on the
three-way join form for your application. You can use a similar procedure to add
the Show Approval Summary and Show Signatures buttons.
The Manage More Information button in the sample applications links to the
AP:Dtl-Sig-MoreInfoDialog form, which enables you to create More Information
records and lists the existing ones. However, BMC recommends that you use the
appropriate fields on AP:Show-Detail to create such records. See AP:Dtl-Sig-
MoreInfoDialog on page 268 and AP:Show-Detail on page 271.
To see how the Manage More Information button works in the sample
applications, use BMC Remedy Developer Studio to review the button on the
AP-Sample:Lunch-Detail-Signatu form. Also review the active links
AP-Sample-Dtl-Sig:MoreInfo01 through AP-Sample-Dtl-Sig:MoreInfo06.
For information about adding fields to forms, including buttons, Form and
Application Objects Guide, Creating and managing fields, page 183.
For information about creating active links, see the Workflow Objects Guide.
The following procedure shows how to make the password field visible on the
three-way join form for your application when the process requires it.
To retrieve the list of approvers for a request the AP:PreviewInfo form requires the
process name, request ID, and the type of preview as input. You can provide these
values in the ShowForProcess, Request/Ticket Number, and Retrieval Type fields.
You can specify one of the following retrieval types:
FullShows completed, pending, and future approval signatures.
RemainingShows pending and future approval signatures.
CompletedShows completed and future approval signatures.
As shown in Figure 9-5, the preview list includes the status of the signatures.
Figure 9-6: Example form with preview table and input fields
Multi-process preview
The multi-process preview appears as a flowchart or a table that lists all the
approvers whose signatures are required for the approval processes to be
completed. Multiple processes appear in the sequence in which they are supplied
to the Generate-Multi-Process-Preview application command. For more
information, see Generate-Multi-Process-Preview on page 186.
Application developers can integrate this feature using this application command
to pass required input values to the approval server, which are then stored in the
AP:Preview Data form.
After the required data is available with the approval server, application
developers can generate the preview in two ways:
Navigate to Approval Central, search for and select a request, and click View
Details to see the flowchart or tabular view on the Approver tab of AP:Show-
Detail.
For the flowchart view, invoke a predefined view from any form.
For the tabular view, create your own table, based on the AP:PreviewInfo form,
by passing the relevant qualification.
NOTE
All information about ad hoc approvers is stored in the AP:AdhocDetails form,
irrespective of which Adhoc Form is specified on AP:Process Definition.
To add a new ad hoc approver, customized applications must push the values of
the following fields to AP:AdhocDetails from their customized ad hoc dialog box:
Table 9-4: Custom ad hoc dialog box fields mapped to the AP:AdhocDialog form
Field name Field ID Description
Name 10009 Set to the ad hoc approvers name or a role name. If set to a role
name, the specified role is expanded to include all the approvers
associated with that role.
Sequence 10001 Set to a valid sequence ID. A valid value is the current or the
future sequence of the process. A sequence number that has been
passed is not allowed.
If Multiple 10010 If set to All, each approver has a separate signature line created
against their name. If set to One, only one signature line is created
for all the approvers.
Independent 10011 If set to Yes, the approval server does not wait for this signature
line to be signed before proceeding to the next level of the process
or to the next process in the chain. If set to No, the approval server
waits for the ad hoc signature to be marked as approved before
proceeding to the next level of the process or the next process in
the chain.
Signature Id 10006 Set to the signature ID for which the ad hoc approver is being
added.
Locked 10012 Set to Yes to indicate that this record is ready to be used for the
corresponding request.
To delete an ad hoc entry, customized applications must first retrieve the request
ID of the record from AP:AdhocDetails by passing the Name, Sequence, and Detail
ID fields. The request ID is used to fire the standard AR System server application
command Application-Delete-Entry to delete the ad hoc approver. For
example, the command to delete the entry on the current form with the entry ID
found in the core field 1 (Request ID) is:
Application-Delete-Entry $SCHEMA$ $1$
BMC Remedy Approval Server (approval server) 7.6.04 is available for the
Windows, Linux, and UNIX operating systems. For information about installing
and uninstalling the approval server for both platforms, see the Installation Guide.
The following topics are provided:
The arapupgd utility (page 174)
Running one-time escalations to configure new data (page 175)
Performing required three-way join form updates (page 176)
Using the approval server on the Web (page 178)
Mapping application request form fields to AP:Detail fields (page 178)
If the execution of arapupgd fails during installation or upgrade, you should run
the utility manually. Then, you should restart the approval server or wait for the
cache to be refreshed for the changes to be visible. Even if the utility fails, no data
is lost.
NOTE
You must run these escalations only once after upgrading. After the Process
Instance ID and Assignee Group Permission fields are set with the appropriate
values, you should disable these escalations.
NOTE
When you configure a notification for a process, a notification filter is created,
based on the Process Instance ID. If the Process Instance ID is changed by any
means, it is not automatically reflected in the notification filter. You must update
the notification filter manually with the new Process Instance ID.
The three-way join form is the join between the application request form and the
AP:Detail-Signature form. For example, in the Get Agreement sample application,
the application request form is AP-Sample2:Get Agreement, and the three-way
join form is AP-Sample2:Issue Detail Signat.
You can add the new fields to your application in one of the following ways:
By editing the form in BMC Remedy Developer Studio
Beginning with release 7.1.00, by using the arjoinfix utility
This section describes these options.
NOTE
You need to set the library paths on UNIX for all approval server utilities.
NOTE
If you created the three-way join form after installing version 7.0.00 or later of the
approval server, you do not have to run arjoinfix to add these fields. These fields
exist in the AP:Signature form, and automatically become part of the three-way
join form when you create the join. See Creating the join forms on page 153.
For more information about the arjoinfix utility, see Running arjoinfix on
page 156.
B Application commands
To support interaction between the AR System server and BMC Remedy Approval
Server (approval server), you use a special AR System process, Application-
Command. You can run this process from filters, escalations, and active links using
the Run Process action.
The following topics are provided:
Using Application-Command processes (page 180)
Approval server commands (page 182)
NOTE
If the operation is performed from a filter or escalation, the -s and -e parameters
default to the current form name (as the application form name) and the current
request ID (as the application request ID) . Therefore, if the default values are
sufficient, you can omit these parameters.
If the operation is performed from an active link, the AR System server cannot
determine what the current environment is, and these values must be supplied.
TIP
The descriptions of the -s and -e parameters (Table B-1 and the adjacent note) are
applicable to all approval server commands in which they are mentioned, and
therefore, not repeated in the Approval server commands section on page 182.
Add-PGNA-Values
Add-PGNA-Values [-t detailID] [-o ruleName] [-l valueList]
This command provides the variable values for the Parameterized Get Next
Approver rule type.
In the following example, the variables enclosed in quotes are provided to the
approval server for use when the next Parameterized Get Next Approver rule
runs:
Add-PGNA-Values -t 00000000000012 -o Sample Param GNA Rule
-l 4/Frank Williams
WARNING
Do not use a slash (/) character within a valueList parameter, because it is a
separator. For example, if you use the following command, then Williams is
ignored, and the result might not be as expected.
Add-PGNA-Values -t 00000000000012 -o Sample Param GNA Rule
-l "4/Frank /Williams"
Add-Sig
Add-Sig [-s formName] [-e requestID] [-t processName]
-o {approverList} [-1 {0|1}] [-2 {0|1|2|999}] [-l assigneeGroupID]
This command links to an existing approval details record, and creates one if none
exists. It then adds one or more signature lines for each value of the -o parameter.
NOTE
If this command is executed for a request that is in the Process Done phase, it
restarts the approval process for that request.
Det-Approved
Det-Approved [-s formName] [-e requestID] [-t processName]
This command marks the AP:Detail record Approved. Any outstanding
signature lines or More Information records are marked Closed. The Process
Done phase notifies the associated request of the approval. This command
corresponds to an approval by global override.
Det-Cancelled
Det-Cancelled [-s formName] [-e requestID] [-t processName]
This command stops an approval process that is in progress, and marks the
AP:Detail record Cancelled. Any outstanding signature lines or More
Information records are marked Cancelled. The Process Done phase notifies the
associated request of the cancellation.
Det-Error
Det-Error [-s formName] [-e requestID] [-t processName]
This command marks the approval detail item Error. Any outstanding signature
lines or More Information records are marked Closed. The Process Done phase
notifies the associated request of the error. This command is intended only to be
used internally by the approval server.
Det-Rejected
Det-Rejected [-s formName] [-e requestID] [-t processName]
This command marks the approval detail item Rejected. Any outstanding
signature lines or More Information records are marked Closed. The Process
Done phase notifies the associated request of the rejection. This command
corresponds to a rejection by global override.
Generate-Multi-Process-Preview
Generate-Multi-Process-Preview [-s formName] [-e requestID]
-l phase:processList; [-o {0|1}]
Creates a multi-process preview request for the associated application request.
Optionally, you might choose to create a single process preview request using the
appropriate parameter. For more information, see Multi-process preview on
page 170.
Generate-Preview
Generate-Preview [-o Generate-Preview] -e requestID
-s formName [-t processName]
Creates a preview request for a single process based on the future signature lines
found in the AP:PreviewInfo form for the associated application request.
For example:
Generate-Preview -o Generate-Preview -e $RequestID$
-s AS ADDSIG:Lunch Scheduler
-t AS ADDSIG:Management Cost Authorization
MoreInfo-Return
MoreInfo-Return [-s formName] [-e requestID]
This command takes data from the specified More Information request and copies
the response back to the associated signature request. The More Information
request must be marked Completed.
New-Details
New-Details [-s formName] [-e requestID] [-t processName]
[-1 priority] [-2 processDueDate] [-l assigneeGroupID]
This command starts an approval server process for the specified request.
This command creates an approval details record. It then searches for Auto
Approval and Self Approval rules; if either exists and passes, the command marks
the record Approved and continues with the Process Done phase to update the
associated request. If no Auto Approval or Self Approval rules pass, the first set of
approvers is found and signature lines are created for them as defined by the rules
of the process.
If this command is fired after Add-Sig, and a detail record already exists for the
application request, an error occurs and the process terminates. To fix this issue,
pull the NotAddSig field (field ID 14523) from AP:Detail onto the two-way join
between your application form and AP:Detail, and save the join form.
Rename-Form
Rename-Form -t oldFormName -o newFormName [-1 activeOnly]
[-2 doRename]
This command changes the name of a form. All references in the definition forms
are updated.
Rename-Process
Rename-Process -t oldProcessName -o newProcessName [-1 activeOnly]
[-2 doRename]
This command changes the name of a process. All references in the related
definition forms are updated. The name of a process can be as long as 80 bytes. This
equates to 80 characters in English and most European languages, but only 40
characters in double-byte languages.
Sig-Approved
Sig-Approved [-s formName] -e requestID [-t processName]
This command performs approval processing on a signature line that has been
marked Approved. The rule process continues to the next approvers.
Sig-Cancelled
Sig-Cancelled [-s formName] -e requestID [-t processName]
[-1 {0|1}]
This command performs cancellation processing on a signature line that has been
marked Cancelled. The request can be in any active state (Pending, Hold, More
Information, Error) for this operation to be performed. The signature line is
cancelled and the process performs the appropriate actions, depending on whether
other signature lines are active.
Sig-Notify
Sig-Notify [-s formName] -e requestID [-1 numNotifications]
This command causes a notification message to be sent, indicating that the
specified AP:Signature record has exceeded its defined time limit without being
resolved. The notification message is sent to the corresponding form-AP:Detail-
Signature join.
Sig-Notify-Change
Sig-Notify-Change -s formName -e requestID [-t processName]
This command causes a notification message to be sent, indicating that the
specified entry has been changed. The approval server sends a notification about
the change in the signature status to all users who have previously acted upon a
signature line for a specific entry.
The notification message is sent to the corresponding AP:Detail-Signature join
form after the detail record is rejected or approved by using the Det-Rejected or
Det-Approved command.
The -s and -e parameters are required to identify the entry that has been changed.
Sig-Notify-State
Sig-Notify-State -s formName -e requestID [-t processName]
[-1 numNotifications] -2 {0|3|4|6|otherState} [-3 {0|1}]
This command causes a notification message to be sent, indicating that the
specified AP:Signature record has exceeded its defined time limit for a given state
without being resolved. The notification message is sent to the corresponding
AP:Detail-Signature join form.
This command gets fired when a user acts on a request through Approval Central.
An administrator can fire this command manually, and the notification is sent if
the signature state has been changed to Hold, More Information, or Error.
A notification can only be sent if the administrator has created AP:Notification
records for the following states: Hold, More Information, Error, Still Pending, Still
Pending (Repeat), Still Hold, Still Hold (Repeat), Still More Information, Still More
Information (Repeat), Still Error, and Still Error (Repeat).
Sig-Reassign
Sig-Reassign [-s formName] -e requestID [-t processName]
{-o shortApproverList | -l longApproverList}
This command reassigns the signature line to another approver list by using either
the -o (for an approver list less than 255 characters) or -l option. The signature line
must be in an active state (Pending, Hold, More Information, Error) for this
operation to be performed.
Sig-Rejected
Sig-Rejected [-s formName] -e requestID [-t processName]
This command is issued when a signature line is changed to Rejected. It marks the
associated detail line as Rejected.
Update-Config
Update-Config -t settingLabel [-o settingValue]
This command updates administrative configuration settings for the application.
C Worksheets
The worksheets in this section are intended to assist you in designing the various
components of BMC Remedy Approval Server (approval server). Reproduce the
worksheets as needed.
The following topics are provided:
Process worksheets (page 196)
Rule worksheets (page 200)
Process worksheets
The following process worksheets help you set up your process and escalations:
Defining a process
More Information escalations
Signature escalations on page 197
You can print one or more of these worksheets at a time on separate pages, and use
them as checklists when setting up your processes and escalations.
Defining a process
Use this worksheet to help you design a process.
Process Name
Form
Type
Request Owner Field
First Approver Field
Approval Success No more approvals Completion rule
If Multiple One Must Sign All Must Sign Allow Only One
Approvers Approver
Allow Ad Hoc Next Anyone Approver No one
Approver?
For Self Assignment Use Get Next Assign to Always Assign to
Approver Rules Owner If Owner
Approver
Validate Approvers? Yes No
Require Password? Yes No
Business Calendar
Holiday Calendar
Notification: Still Outstanding
First Interval Unit
Repeat Interval Unit
Signature escalations
Use the following worksheets to help you set the Notification parameters on the
Process form.
Rule worksheets
Use the following worksheets to help set up your rules:
Auto Approval rules
Get Authority rules on page 200
Get Authority Self rules on page 201
Self Approval rules on page 201
Validate Approver rules on page 201
Prep Get Next Approver rules on page 202
Get Next Approver rules on page 202
Get Authority Regular rules on page 203
Parameterized Get Next Approver rules on page 203
Signature Accumulator rules on page 204
Statistical Override rules on page 204
Completion rules on page 204
Approval Process Done rules on page 205
Completion rules
Rule Name
Purpose
For Process
Rule
D Approval forms
This section describes all the BMC Remedy Approval Server (approval server)
forms and their fields.
AR System administrators, process administrators, and approvers can access the
most important approval server functionality in the Approval Central and
AP:Administration forms. For example, the best practice is to use
AP:Administration to access the AP:Server Settings and AP:Admin-Rename
forms, rather than opening the helper forms independently.
The following topics are provided:
Administration forms (page 208)
User forms (page 255)
Administration forms
Administration forms are used either by approval administrators to manage
process settings, or by the approval server to manage data.
AP:AdhocDetails
This form stores the information entered through AP:AdhocDialog. See
AP:AdhocDialog on page 263.
For more information, see Using a custom ad hoc dialog box with the approval
server on page 171.
AP:Administration
Process administrators use this form to create and modify the records that make
up approval processes. See Using the approval server Administration form on
page 24.
AP:Admin-DeleteVerify
This dialog box appears when a process administrator tries to delete an entry in
AP:Administration. The entry could be a process, rule, notification, role, form,
another process administrator, or an alternate approver.
You can delete only one entry at a time. When you select a process and click Delete,
the dialog indicates that if you proceed, the associated rules, notifications, and
administrators are also deleted.
Click Yes to delete the entry. The corresponding record in AP:Question-
Comment-Info is deleted.
Click No to close the dialog box without deleting the entry.
AP:Admin-Rename
This dialog box appears when a process administrator selects Rename in the
navigation pane of the Administration form.
NOTE
If you renamed a process manually instead of using the Rename dialog box, the
Rename command will not change names of attached rules. You must restore the
process name manually and rename the entire process. Or you can rename all the
attached rules using the Rename dialog box.
AP:Admin-ServerSettings
Process administrators use this form to change server settings for the approval
server. To open this form, select Server Settings in the navigation pane of the
AP:Administrator form.
Basic tab
Figure D-4: AP:Admin-ServerSettings formBasic tab
Click Save to apply your changes, Reset to reload the form with the previously
stored values, and Close to close the dialog box without saving any changes.
Notifications tab
The Notifications tab allows you to enable or disable notifications for various
approval server events.
You can specify whether or not to send notifications on the following events:
Escalations tab
Figure D-6: AP:Admin-ServerSettings formEscalations tab
AP:Customize-SourceID
The AP:Customize-SourceID dialog box appears when you click the Customize
link on the Basic tab on AP:Form. This dialog enables you to specify the application
form that opens when users click the Request ID link on Approval Central.
AP:Detail
The AP:Detail form holds all data about an approval request. You can use this form
to determine the status of a request, and to see a history of activity on the request
for any approval process. In addition to the fields described in this section, the
AP:Detail form also includes hidden Currency, Date, and Time fields to store
temporary results during workflow. For example, Currency Field 1 and Currency
Field 2 are temporary fields of the currency type.
AP:Detail-Signature
AP:Detail-Signature is a join form that combines data from the AP:Detail and
AP:Signature forms. You link this form to your applications approval request
form to create a three-way join when you add approvals to your application. The
approval server uses this form for internal processing. The visible fields of this
form appear by default in the three-way join form, which displays request details.
To open the three-way join form, click Source ID on Approval Central, and click
the Show Signatures button (if implemented) on the application form that appears.
In addition to the fields described in this section, the AP:Detail-Signature form also
includes many hidden fields used to store temporary results during workflow.
AP:DynamicLabels
This form enables you to set locale-specific labels for four fields on the AP:Show-
Detail form. The default labels for these fields are GL Account, Cost Center, Total
Cost, and Phase, respectively.
Provide labels for the fields 14508, 14509, 14510, and 14511, and click Save.
For information about where these labels appear, see AP:Form.
AP:Form
This form is linked to the Form tab of AP:Administration. Process administrators
use this form to attach approval request forms to the approval server.
Basic tab
Figure D-10: AP:FormBasic tab
Advanced tab
The Advanced tab enables Process administrators to define field mappings for a
request form at the application level. These mappings are not mandatory.
The fields on this form are reserved field IDs in the approval server. You can map
them to other fields on the application forms by using the corresponding menus.
The values from the mapped fields are displayed on Approval Central and
AP:Show-Detail. Table D-10 describes where these values appear.
NOTE
Changing the field mappings on this form only affects new requests. The older
requests retain their original field values.
AP:Notification
Process administrators use this form to create and modify notifications sent by
approval processes. This form opens from when you click View or Create from the
Notification tab of AP:Administration.
Basic tab
Figure D-12: AP:Notification formBasic tab
Details tab
Figure D-13: AP:Notification formDetails tab
Email tab
Figure D-14: AP:Notification formEmail tab
AP:Preview Data
This form stores intermediate data that is used to generate the multi-process
preview for an approval request. See Multi-process preview on page 170.
The field values correspond to the input parameter values of the Generate-
Multi-Process-Preview command. See Generate-Multi-Process-Preview on
page 186.
AP:PreviewInfo
The approval server uses this form to store preview data when the process is
configured to generate previews. Process administrators can use this form to
preview all the approvers assigned to work on an approval request.
You must enter data into all the visible fields to search the AP:PreviewInfo form.
See Configuring previews on page 33.
AP:PreviewSignatures
The AP:PreviewSignatures form keeps track of signature entries generated as part
of the approval preview feature (except for real-time preview).
NOTE
The approval server uses this form internally, and users must not use this form to
create records manually.
AP:Process Administrator
The AP:Process Administrator form opens when you click View or Create on the
Administrator tab in AP:Administration. AR System administrators and process
administrators use this form to create, delete, and modify the abilities of other
process administrators. See Configuring process administrator capabilities on
page 26.
NOTE
The first process administrator must be created by your AR System administrator.
AP:Process Definition
This form opens when you click View or Create on the Process tab of
AP:Administration. Process administrators use this form to create and modify
approval processes. See Using the Process tab on AP:Administration on page 98.
Basic tab
Figure D-19: AP:Process Definition formBasic tab
Configuration tab
Figure D-20: AP:Process Definition formConfiguration tab
The three tabs (Normal, Urgent, and Low) on the Signature Escalation tab contain
identical fields.
AP:Question-Comment-Info
The approval server uses this form internally to store additional information that
requestors and approvers provide about requests.
Table D-22 describes the data stored in this form and the source of that data.
This form also stores the text from the following sources:
Form Field
AP:More Information Response
AP:Show-Detail Response
Notes
Application form Notes (if added with the appropriate workflow)
AP:Reserved Word
Process administrators use this form to create keywords and functions for
approval processes.
AP:Role
The AP:Role form opens when you click View or Create on the Role tab of
AP:Administration. Process administrators use this form to create role definitions
for approval processes. See Defining roles on page 106.
AP:Rule Definition
The AP:Rule Definition form opens when you click View or Create on the Rule tab
of AP:Administration.
Basic tab
Figure D-25: AP:Rule Definition formBasic tab
Process administrators use this form to create and modify rules for approval
processes. See Using the Rule tab on AP:Administration on page 110.
AP:Signature
The AP:Signature form stores the signature lines for approval requests.
Administrators can use this form to review the responses to a request. However,
you should modify this information only through Approval Central.
In such a event, entries such as the following are recorded in the approval log:
<APPR> * Process option set to not validate user so no work needed
<APPR> Expanding roles for approver(s): SGP000000000082|CAB-Member
<APPR> Expanding roles for approver(s): SGP000000000084|CAB-Member
APPR> Dropping duplicate approver line for USER1;USER2;USER3;
<APPR> Dropping duplicate approver line for USER1;USER2;USER3;
You can safely ignore such log entries; the signature lines are dropped because the
approval server maintains only one signature line for an approver per request until
the associated process is active.
Full Name
The approval server uses the login name to search for the corresponding full name
when creating a signature entry. It first searches the User forms, and if they do not
have the full name information, it searches the custom form specified on
AP:Process Definition. This information is stored in the Full Name character field
(14201). See Full Name Form on page 239.
If there is no custom Full Name Form, or if the full name information is not found
through this form, the login name is used as default.
Setting the full name on a signature line is a one-time activity; this value is not set
at run time. The full name provided at the time of signature line creation stays
constant. When upgrading to release 7.5.00 or later, if the Full Name value is not
available, it is set according to the current Full Name value from the related form.
If the Full Name value is required to be set dynamically, application developers
must write the appropriate escalations, because applications can fetch user
information from different forms, like the User form, CTM:People form, and so on.
Role ID
If a signature is created by expanding a role, the Role ID character field (14200)
stores the role ID of the source role, which was expanded to create the individual
signature line. The following situations could occur:
If a role has One Must Sign set to true, only one signature entry is created for all
the members belonging to the role. The related role ID is copied to the Role ID
character field.
If a role has All Must Sign set to true, the role ID is copied to each signature entry
that is created by expanding the role.
Depending on the process definition, the signature entries are created as follows:
When One Must Sign is defined at the process level, only one signature entry is
created, irrespective of the If Multiple Approvers setting at the role level. In this
case, the individuals defined as approvers and the individuals expanded from
the roles provided as approvers appear in a single signature entry. Role IDs for
all the roles in the approvers list are put in the newly added field on the
AP:Signature form for the corresponding signature.
When All Must Sign is defined at the process level, multiple signatures are
created according to the If Multiple Approvers setting at the role level. In this
case, each signature entry contains the role ID that was responsible for creating
the entry by expanding the individuals in the role.
The values in the Role ID field could differ as follows:
The Role ID field remains blank for individuals in the approvers list.
The Role ID field can have a single role ID or multiple roles IDs based on the
definitions. All role IDs are enclosed between semicolons.
Consider a case where a role is defined as an approver, which in turn is
composed of roles. When this is expanded recursively to write individuals in the
signature entry, the Role ID field has the role ID of the base role that was
provided as the approver.
For example: The Finance role contains the users Jim and Frank. The Purchase
role contains the users Paul and Bob. The Administrator role is a superset of
Finance, Purchase, and a few more roles. When the Administrator role is defined
as an approver for a request, even though it expands the Finance, Purchase, and
other roles recursively to get individual approvers, the Role ID fields of the
signatures created for these approvers contains the role ID of the Administrator
role.
User forms
User forms are used by submitters, approvers, process administrators, and so on.
Approval Central
The Approval Central form, which acts as the approval server console, appears
when you log in to AR System and click the Approval Central link on the home
page. This link is localized.
TIP
The localized link is visible only if the Localize Server option is enabled on the
Advanced tab of the AR System Administration: Server Information form. See the
Configuration Guide, Server InformationAdvanced tab, page 123.
NOTE
The Approval Central view is not supported on 7.0.01 or earlier versions of
AR System clients. When Approval Central is opened in version 7.0.01 of
BMC Remedy Mid Tier or BMC Remedy User, a warning message is displayed
and the counts against the links in the left pane are not displayed.
Approval Central enables you to quickly review the approval requests awaiting
your attention. These could be direct requests or requests for which you act as an
alternate approver. You can approve, reject, hold, or view the details of a pending
request using the appropriate buttons provided at the bottom of the form. You can
reassign a pending request only if the Can Reassign option for the corresponding
approval process is set to Yes in AP:Process Definition.
When you open Approval Central, the Pending Approvals table appears by
default, and it displays requests that have the Pending, Hold, or More Information
status.
The left pane contains two sections: Approval Tasks and Action Menu. Clicking a
link in these sections displays a corresponding panel in the right pane.
Approval Tasks
The links in this section correspond to pre-defined searches. A table in the
corresponding panel on the right displays the search results. See Approval Search
Result table on page 259.
After you respond to a question or view the answer to a question you raised, the
state of the request changes from More Information to Pending.
Action Menu
Table D-29: Fields on Approval CentralAction Menu section
Field Description
My Recent History Click to view the requests that you approved or rejected, and
requests that have the Error status. This is a pre-defined search,
the results of which appear on the right pane in the My Recent
Approvals History table. Requests displayed in this table have
the Approved, Rejected, or Error status.
A Process Administrator configures the number of history items
to display. See AP:Admin-ServerSettings on page 212.
This is a pre-defined search, the results of which appear on the
right pane in the My Recent Approvals History table.
Search My Approvals Click to display the Approval Search panel where you can
specify various search criteria and view the results in the Search
Results table.
My Alternate Click this link to open the AP:Alternate form in New mode.
Approvers For more information, see AP:Alternate on page 266.
The right pane displays the appropriate panels when you click the links in the
Approval Tasks or the Action Menu sections in the left pane. You can expand or
collapse these panels using the arrow icon next to the panel title.
Approval Search
Enables you to specify criteria for searching through approval requests. Select or
enter field values in this section of the form to search for requests and display the
results in the Search Results table.
The second untitled column contains check boxes that you can use to select the
corresponding requests. Use the check boxes to select multiple requests on which
you want to perform similar actions.
Clicking on a row, without using the corresponding check box, will select that row
and deselect everything else. Click the Select All or Deselect All buttons to select or
deselect all the requests in this table. See Working with multiple pending
requests on page 261.
NOTE
Multiple row selection does not work for requests of the Needs Attention category.
You can select multiple requests and approve, reject, hold, or reassign them
together. Upon clicking the appropriate action button, a guide runs through the
individual requests and performs the actions. If one or more of the associated
processes mandate passwords, you are prompted to provide it, only once, before
the action is performed.
Setting display preferences on Approval Central
Use the Preferences menu to set display preferences for the tables on this screen as
follows:
Add ColumnUse to select a column to be displayed.
Remove ColumnUse to select a column to be hidden.
Set Refresh IntervalClick to open a dialog box that allows you to specify the
duration (in minutes) after which the table is automatically refreshed.
ResetClick to revert any changes you made to the appearance of the table, or
the refresh interval.
SaveClick to save any changes you made to the appearance of the table or the
refresh interval. These changes are saved only for the current session and are not
persistent, which means they are not retained when you log out and log in again.
Action buttons
You can select one or more requests on Approval Central and click the appropriate
buttons to perform the desired actions. The buttons are disabled only if there are
no requests to be selected.
Selecting one or more requests enables all the action buttons irrespective of the
status of the request. If a certain action can not be performed on a selected request,
one of the following occurs:
Clicking the action button has no effect. For example, if you select a request that
is on hold, clicking the Hold button will have no effect.
Clicking the action button displays an error message and the request remains
unchanged. For example, if you select an request with the Approved, Rejected,
or Error status and click either Approve, Reject, Hold, or Reassign, the following
error message is displayed:
Select atleast one row with appropriate status to perform the
buttonLabel action. (ARERR errorNumber)
When you click any of the Approve, Reject, Hold, or Reassign buttons, a dialog box
prompts you to enter your password. The statuses of the selected requests are
changed only if you provide a valid password, otherwise an error is displayed.
AP:AdhocDialog
This dialog box appears when you click the Adhoc button on the AP:Show-Detail
form for a request. The appearance of this dialog box is dependent on the value of
the Ad Hoc Settings field on AP:Process Definition; it appears only if the Default
option is selected. However, if the approval administrator selects the User Defined
option, the custom dialog box for the corresponding form is displayed.
AP:AdhocDialog shows the list of existing ad hoc approvers, if any, and enables
you to add to or remove from this list. If the table contains multiple rows, the first
row is selected by default.
NOTE
After you add an ad hoc approver at the current level and save the record (the data
is saved in AP:AdhocDetails), you cannot modify it. If you need to make changes,
delete the existing ad hoc approver record and create a new one.
You can modify the record of an ad hoc approver who is assigned for a future level.
AP:Alternate
Approvers use this form to create, delete, and maintain alternate approvers.
AP:Dtl-Sig-MoreInfoDialog
This form appears when you click More Information on the AP:Detail-Signature
form, or Manage More Information on the three-way join forms in the sample
applications. When opened, it is populated with a list of More Information requests
related to the current approval request.
AP:More Information
This form contains More Information requests. It opens when you click New
Record or Open on the AP:Dtl-Sig-MoreInfoDialog form.
AP:Password
This dialog box appears when an approver clicks Approve, Reject, or Reassign on
Approval Central for a request whose process requires a password. An approver
must enter the correct AR System user password and click Submit. If the password
in authenticated, the request status is changed. Otherwise, an authentication error
is displayed and no action is taken on the request.
AP:Reassign
Figure D-35: AP:Reassign dialog box
This dialog box appears when an approver selects one or more approval requests
on Approval Central or opens AP:Show-Detail for a record, and clicks Reassign.
Select a name from the user list or enter the precise AR System login name of the
approver to whom you want to reassign the request, and click OK.
If the requests you selected belong to different processes, each of which have a
different menu configuration for the user list, the user list pertaining to the first
request is displayed. To choose from the appropriate user list for a request, work
with a single request at a time.
Click Cancel to close the dialog box without performing any action on the request.
AP:Rejection Justification
This dialog box appears when an approver selects one or more approval requests
on Approval Central or opens AP:Show-Detail and clicks Reject without entering
some text in the Justification For Action field.
AP:Show-Detail
The AP:Show-Detail form displays all the data related to an approval request. This
data is fetched from the AP:Detail form.
For more information, see AP:Detail on page 216.
The P-C Phase, P-C GL Account, P-C Cost Center, and P-C Total Cost are generic
character fields, which application developers can use to show additional
character data. The labels of these fields can also be changed dynamically so that
the labels are in sync with the values. These labels are localized.
NOTE
Localized labels are visible only if the Localize Server option is enabled on the
Advanced tab of the AR System Administration: Server Information form. See the
Configuration Guide, Server InformationAdvanced tab, page 123.
The Action Date field indicates the duration after which the state of the approval
request is changed automatically or a notification is sent to the relevant approver
to act on the same. This occurs only if it is so defined in the process. For more
information, see AP:Process Definition on page 231 and Creating signature
escalations on page 101.
When you click any of the Approve, Reject, Reassign, Hold, or Adhoc buttons, a
dialog box prompts you to enter your password. The request status is changed, or
AP:AdhocDialog is displayed, only if you provide a valid password, otherwise an
error is displayed.
Approver tab
This tab displays a preview of the processes through which the current request
might traverse until it reaches the Completion Check stage.
A legend at the bottom of this tab indicates the meaning of the status icons attached
to each signature in the preview.
NOTE
When the AP:Show-Detail form is viewed through versions earlier than 7.5.00 of
BMC Remedy User or BMC Remedy Mid Tier, the Preview Type option on the
Approver tab is unavailable (disabled).
Sequence diagram
The sequence diagram is a flowchart representation of the approval chain for the
current request. If you add or remove an ad hoc approver, or perform any other
action on the request, it is reflected in the flowchart immediately. If an approver
name is not available, the flowchart displays empty blocks in its place. The
flowchart displays only valid approvers.
The flowchart view is localized; its elements can be displayed in all languages
available with AR System.
NOTE
Localized data is visible only if the Localize Server option is enabled on the
Advanced tab of the AR System Administration: Server Information form. See the
Configuration Guide, Server InformationAdvanced tab, page 123.
NOTE
The DVF cannot be seen using Firefox 2.0.0.11 on Mac 10.4.11; this is an issue with
the browser.
The flowchart view is backward compatible with mid tier releases 7.1.00 and
7.0.01. You can use any version of BMC Remedy User to see the flowchart view for
an approval request, or view it through a browser.
NOTE
When the AR System server has encryption enabled (Premium Security or
Performance Security), the multi-process preview flowchart might take longer to
load.
Table
The table depicts the approval sequence. If you add or remove an ad hoc approver,
or perform any other action on the request, it is reflected in the flowchart
immediately.
Right click anywhere in this tab to open the Preferences context menu. This menu
enables you to refresh the contents of the table, add or remove columns from the
view, set the refresh interval, and reset or save the changes you make to the table.
Comments
This feature enables submitters (requestor and approvers) to include comments
and attachments for an approval request. These could be useful as additional
information for the next approver in the chain.
Approvers can work with comments in the following ways using this form:
Add or delete their own comments, and view the comments included by other
approvers.
Include an attachment at the time of creating a comment. They can also modify
or delete the attachments associated with their own comments.
Edit or delete comments of other approvers if they are the Alternate Approvers
or Administrators. Approvers other than these can only view the corresponding
details.
Requestors can work with comments in the following ways:
Provide a comment with an attachment through the application form. The
workflow on the Activity Log checks the respective application form for the
requestor's comment on the selected approval request. If a comment is available,
it displays the comment in the Activity Log table.
Modify or delete comments they created. If the requestor modifies a comment
or its attachment, or both, the Activity Log displays the modified details
whenever an approver invokes the Activity Log (or refreshes the table).
Questions
This feature enables approvers to ask questions about an approval request to
requestors and other approvers. These answers could be useful as clarifications to
the current and future approvers in the chain.
Approvers can work with questions in the following ways using this form:
Add, modify, and delete their own questions, and view the questions raised by
other approvers.
Edit or delete questions raised by other approvers if they are the Alternate
Approvers or Administrators. Approvers other than these can only view the
corresponding details.
Requestors can work with questions in the following ways:
Cannot create a question because the Activity Log, which is invoked from
Approval Central, is available only to approvers. A requester does not have
access to the Activity Log.
Provide the response to a question through the More Information form.
The Questions feature works as follows:
An approver can raise a question to any user of the system (or application). If
the notifications are configured, the respective user receives a notification. The
user then clicks the Response button in the Approval Request Summary section
of Approval Central to open the AP:MoreInformation form for the request.
An approver can raise only one question at a time per request because, when a
question is created, the status of the request is changed to More Information.
After a requestor or approver responds to the question, the request is again
assigned the Pending status.
Approvers can modify or delete the questions they raised before the addressees
respond to them. No notification is sent in this case.
The question details in the table are associated with the Approval ID, Signature
ID, and a Question ID.
Questions cannot be redirected.
Every question can be associated with only one answer.
AP:ShowDetail-DeleteVerify
This dialog box appears when an approver tries to delete an Activity Log entry in
AP:Show-Detail. The entry could be a question, comment, or justification that the
approver created.
You can delete only one entry at a time. You cannot delete entries created by the
requestor or other approvers.
Click Yes to delete the entry for the request. The corresponding record in
AP:Question-Comment-Info is deleted.
Click No to close the dialog box without deleting the entry.
This section describes how to install BMC Remedy Approval Server (approval
server) in an AR System server group.
In an AR System server group environment, two or more servers share the same
database. If one server stops working, another one continues to process requests.
See the Configuration Guide, Configuring server groups, page 183.
In a server group environment, when an AR System server becomes unavailable,
the newly active AR System server performs the following actions:
Sets Approval-Server-Suspended: F in the ar.cfg (Windows) or ar.conf
(UNIX) file on the unavailable server. This indicates that the approval server on
that AR System server is unavailable for processing.
Sets Approval-Server-Suspended: T in the local ar.cfg (Windows) or
ar.conf (UNIX) file. The local approval server begins processing the approval
requests.
Consider that servers with the following configuration are used to set up a server
group named SvrGrp:
NOTE
The change in the Server Group Name is effective only when all servers in the
group are restarted.
6 Log in to any one of the servers, and perform the following steps:
a Open the AR System Server Group Operation Ranking form.
b Configure the approval server operation of Server SvrA to hold Rank 1, and save
the form.
c Configure the approval server operation of Server SvrB to hold Rank 2, and save
the form.
Restart SvrA and SvrB for the changes to take effect.
F Troubleshooting
Log data for an upgrade installation is written to the following files in the same
folder:
Approval-RIK_PostUpgradeInstall.log
upgrade.log
Runtime issues
This section describes how to resolve some possible runtime issues.
Table F-1: BMC Remedy Approval Server configuration file settings (Sheet 1 of 2)
Configuration setting Description How to set it
Alternate- Specifies whether applications such as the approval The AR System server
Approval-Reg server listen for the AR System servers signal installation creates this entry and
directly (F) or listen for the application dispatcher to sets the value to T. To change the
signal (T). setting, use a text editor to edit
The default value of this setting is T, which makes the ar.cfg or ar.conf file.
sure that the approval server receives the signals
sent by the dispatcher. You should change the value
to F only when the application dispatcher is not
working; this provides an alternative method to
receive signals form the AR System server.
See Application Dispatcher on page 289.
Appr-Defn-Check- The interval (in seconds) after which the approval AP:Admin-ServerSettings
Interval server checks for changed or updated data in the
data definition forms.
Approval-Log- Full path of the approval server log file. AP:Admin-ServerSettings
File
Approval-Notify Specifies the approval notifications configured from AP:Admin-ServerSettings
the Server Settings dialog box. Each event ID has an
Approval-Notify entry. Only change these settings
from the Server Settings dialog box.
Approval-RPC- A specific RPC program number (RPC socket) AP:Admin-ServerSettings
Socket dedicated to the approval server for calls to the
AR System server. This setting defines a private
queue for the approval server.
Plugin-Loopback- An RPC program number (RPC socket) dedicated to AP:Admin-ServerSettings or
RPC-Socket loopback calls from the Plug-in server. The Server Information dialog box.
approval server runs as a plug-in. If this value is set
and Approval-RPC-Socket is not set, the Plug-in
server uses this queue for approval server loopback
calls.
Table F-1: BMC Remedy Approval Server configuration file settings (Sheet 2 of 2)
Configuration setting Description How to set it
Approval-Polling- This setting causes the approval server to poll the Edit the ar.cfg or ar.conf file
Interval AR System server for pending work. It is intended with a text editor.
to operate as a backup method, not the primary
contact method. Under normal circumstances, the
AR System server or the Application Dispatcher
(depending on the configuration) contacts the
approval server when work is pending.
With this setting in place, the approval server polls
the AR System server only if it does not receive any
signal from the AR System server in the specified
time.
Specify the interval in seconds. The minimum is 30
seconds, and the maximum is 3600 seconds (one
hour). For example:
Approval-Polling-Interval:600
Accessibility issues
When working with approval server forms, you might encounter the following
accessibility issues:
The Select All button on Approval Central does not work for section 508 users.
If the user navigates to the Select All button by using the Tab key and presses
Enter, only the next request is selected instead of all the requests in the table.
The JAWS screen reader is unable to detect the check boxes that indicate which
requests are currently selected.
JAWS does not read aloud the following non-editable fields on Approval
Central:
The Approval Request Summary header
The Source ID link
The Activity Log header
When a section 508 user opens a menu, a pop-up dialog box appears, which lists
the items in that menu. Then, JAWS reads the items out aloud. If the user presses
Tab, the focus moves to the Cancel button instead of the next item in the menu.
Glossary 289
BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.6.04
Glossary 291
BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.6.04
qualification signature
A condition statement using search criteria An entry in the AP:Signature form that
that can include field references, values, and represents the response of an approver to an
arithmetical and relational operators. In approval request.
approval server processes, rules, and Signature Accumulator
workflow objects, condition statements are A rule type that is used to collect statistical
used to determine whether the process, rule, information about the signature records
or filter should run, and to control data associated with an approval process.
gathering.
signature authority
reassign The ability of an approver to authorize a
An action for an approver to reroute a request request, based on policies established by the
by changing the assigned approvers. organization and defined in a signature
reject by another approver authority form.
An indication for notifications when multiple signature authority form
required approvals are outstanding and one A form created by the administrator that
of the other approvers rejects the request. contains approver names or roles and their
reject by later level signature authority limits, to support data
An indication for notifications when an gathering by get authority rules.
approval process is rejected by an approver signature record
after it has been approved by a previous A database record in the AP:Signature form
approver. that represents the signature of an approver. If
rejected an approval request requires more than one
The status of a completed approval request signature, multiple signature records are
when an approver has rejected the request. generated for that single approval request.
Also the status of the signature line of the Statistical Override
approver who has rejected the request. A rule type that is used to preempt the default
requester behavior of the approval process and follow
A user who submits a form to request an an approve or reject path before all pending
approval, triggering approval server action. signatures have been completed.
role Status field
A named alias for one or more approvers. The core field (ID 7) in which AR System
Using roles allows the definition of a position tracks the status of a request. In the approval
regardless of the individual approvers who server, the AP:Detail form uses this field to
are currently fulfilling that position. track the overall status of the request. In the
Rule-Based AP:Signature form, the field is renamed to
A custom approval process type designed by Approval Status, and it tracks the approval
the process administrator, in which status of the individual signature line.
relationships are defined by rules rather than Validate Approver
by data in a form. See also Parent-Child, Level, A rule type that is used to verify that a name
and Ad Hoc process. specified as the next approver is a valid user.
Self Approval Only used to verify a user specified in an Ad
A rule type that allows for automatic approval Hoc process or an ad hoc override of another
of a request if the submitter of the request has process type.
sufficient authority for the request to be
approved.
Index
Index 293
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Index 295
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Index 297
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
S T
sample applications technical support 3
Get Agreement 58 three-way join forms
Lunch Scheduler 144 See also forms, application
sample forms example 145
Get Agreement 59 troubleshooting
Lunch Scheduler 145 configuration file settings 286
sample users, approval authority 150 deadlocked Approval Server 285
security, requiring passwords to approve 237 error messages 287
Self Approval rules field permission errors 284
about 82 installation 283
creating 118 two-way join forms
examples 84, 119 See also forms, application
get authority rules and 83 example 145
Self Check stage and 74
worksheet 201
Self Check stage U
about 74 upgrading the Approval Server 174
rules in 82 users, licensing sample 150
Signature Accumulator rules
about 88
creating 131 V
default statistical data and 131
Validate Approver rules
examples 89, 132
about 85
Get Agreement functionality 133, 135
creating 129
Level processes and 89
examples 86, 130
signature lines and 89
worksheet 201
worksheet 204
signature authority
form 72
Lunch Scheduler sample application and 150
W
signatures Web access 178
creating escalations 101, 197 workflow
creating lines 85 enhancing Approval Server forms 166
limits 134 notifications and 165
specifying additional approvers 43 worksheets
statistical decision-making rules More Information escalations 196
See also Signature Accumulator rules; Statistical processes 196
Override rules rules 200
about 88 signature escalations 197
Statistical Override rules
about 88
actions 89
creating 132
default data and 90, 137
examples 133
Get Agreement functionality 135
process types and 89
worksheet 204
status 41
support, customer 3