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Configuring and Using Approvals with BMC Remedy Change Management 7.0
October 2007
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Contents
Configuring approvals with Change Management 7.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Permissions and roles required to configure change management approvals . . . . . . 16 Configuring change management approvals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Change states and approval phases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Overview of how default approvals work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Approval process types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Preconfigured global approval processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Viewing approval processes in the Approval Server. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Approval process definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Setting up additional approval processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Approval states on the Status Flow tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Configuring approvals for CI changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Bypassing the approval process for emergency changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Configuring additional No Impact processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Creating people and mapping roles for approvals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Approver mappings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Field values in Impacted Area approvals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Using Impacted Areas with change requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Adding mapping field values to Impacted Area approvals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Adding mapping fields to approvals for CIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Mapping approvers to approval phases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Creating individual mappings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Creating group mappings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 How approvals work with change requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Submitting change requests to the approval phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Handling approvals for emergency change requests. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Resubmitting a rejected change request. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Implementing the change request. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Working with Change Management as an approver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Adding approvers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Adding alternate approvers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Acting as an alternate approver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Viewing non-approver notifications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Configuring and Using Approvals with BMC Remedy Change Management 7.0 BMC Software Inc., Confidential
White Paper
Configuring and Using Approvals with BMC Remedy Change Management 7.0
This white paper is for the Change Management administrator who configures approvals to work with BMC Remedy Change Management 7.0. Configuration tasks are performed from the Application Administration Console. This white paper also describes how approvals are used with the Change Management application, for example, how you can configure approvals to work with configuration items (CIs) and impacted areas (IAs).
IMPORTANT
This white paper assumes that you have installed ITSM Patch 006.
Configuring and Using Approvals with BMC Remedy Change Management 7.0 7 BMC Software Inc., Confidential
White Paper
Administration Console, choose Custom Configuration > Foundation > People > People.)
Figure 1-1: Defining approvers in the People form
8 Configuring and Using Approvals with BMC Remedy Change Management 7.0 BMC Software Inc., Confidential
Configuring and Using Approvals with BMC Remedy Change Management 7.0
NOTE
Support group membership and the Infrastructure Change Approval functional role (defined in the Support Groups tab) are required only for group approvals (rather than individual approvers). For more information, see Creating group mappings on page 74. For more information, see Creating people and mapping roles for approvals on page 48.
Step 2 Review the approval process definitions that are installed by default
for global use. (In the Application Administration Console, choose Custom Configuration > Foundation > Advanced Options > Approval Process Configuration.)
Figure 1-2: Reviewing the global approval process definitions
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White Paper
The definitions are enabled by default. These global definitions specify which approval state occurs next if an approval is approved or rejected, or if no approvers are defined.
NOTE
Here you are not customizing the approval process definitions or creating new definitions from scratch. For more information, see Preconfigured global approval processes on page 28.
Step 3 Click the Status Flow tab in the approval process definitions to review
Figure 1-3: Reviewing the status flow of the approval process definition
10 Configuring and Using Approvals with BMC Remedy Change Management 7.0 BMC Software Inc., Confidential
Configuring and Using Approvals with BMC Remedy Change Management 7.0
For example, in Figure 1-3, you see the Review global definition defines four different approval actions and resulting change states that drive the progress of the change request.
Table 1-1: Approval and change request states Approval state Begin Change request state Request For Authorization Request For Change Rejected No Approvers Approval Engine action to the change request When the Status of the change request is Request For Authorization, the approval process starts. If the change request is approved, its Status becomes Request For Change. If the change request is rejected, its Status changes to Rejected. If there are no approvers defined for the change (that is, if no approvers are mapped to this definition), its Status changes to Request For Change.
For more information, see Approval states on the Status Flow tab on page 41.
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White Paper Step 4 Map your approvers to the global approval process definitions. (In
the Application Administration Console, choose Custom Configuration > Change Management > Approval > Approval Mappings.)
Figure 1-4: Mapping approvers
No approver mappings are provided by default with Change Management 7.0. If you do not create any approver mappings, a change request moves through the entire change management process with only standard approvals performed by the person assigned to the change request.
IMPORTANT
Enter only the values (shown in the red area in Figure 1-4) needed to create the approver mappings. To enter values in the Additional Mappings area, carefully read Approver mappings on page 50 to understand the purposes of these fields and how they are used.
12 Configuring and Using Approvals with BMC Remedy Change Management 7.0 BMC Software Inc., Confidential
Configuring and Using Approvals with BMC Remedy Change Management 7.0 Step 5 Create a change request, and then use the Process Flow Status wizard
a Log in to Change Management. b Create a change request and assign it to a specific support group in
your company.
c Use the process flow wizard to work the change request through its
If you correctly mapped the approvers to the approval process definition, you will see the approver in the Approvers tab when the change request reaches the Request For Authorization state, as shown in Figure 1-5.
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White Paper Step 6 Log in to the AR System server as the approver in a separate user tool
or browser, open Approval Central, and then approve the change request.
Figure 1-6: Approving the change request in Approval Central
NOTE
Figure 1-6 shows the 7.1.00 version of Approval Central.
14 Configuring and Using Approvals with BMC Remedy Change Management 7.0 BMC Software Inc., Confidential
Configuring and Using Approvals with BMC Remedy Change Management 7.0 Step 7 Return to the change request, and then refresh it. Figure 1-7: Flow of change request after approval
As shown in Figure 1-7, the Status of the change request moves to Request For Change. This behavior of the change request is exactly as described in Table 11 on page 11. By default, when a change request in the Request For Authorization state is approved, it moves to the Request For Change state.
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White Paper