This module provides the capability to handle a two levels approval process for a user request, with several approvers in parallel on each level.
new
, but can be another one)Date | Version | Description |
---|---|---|
2022-03-14 | 2.1.1 | * Remove deprecated function from iTop Extensions - ajax_page + SetupPage::log_info * Improve log entry on approval * version iTop min 2.4.0 * Fix approval with silo * Portal: fix Approval screen if the approver is not allowed to see the organization of some user requests |
2021-12-21 | 2.1.0 | * Remove references to Flash * Add iTop 3.0 compatibility |
2021-12-17 | 2.0.5 | * Update german translations * Fix coverage created without any hour selected was crashing iTop |
2020-12-17 | 2.0.4 | Fix approvers not being able to download attachments in iTop 2.7+ |
2020-12-02 | 2.0.3 | Fix: Name of bypass user no more displayed in console |
2020-10-10 | 2.0.2 | Mail for iTop user validator must contain URL to the portal instead of URL with token |
2020-03-18 | 2.0.1 | * Bring compatibility with iTop 2.7 * Fix TWIG template not found when trying to open object form |
2020-03-05 | 2.0.0 | * Add compatibility with iTop 2.7+ * Update DE translations * Enable Notification management delegation * ActionEmailApprovalRequest : default sender for sample email actions * Fix: Approval reminder in edit mode : double pop-up * from and reply_to can be specified in ActionEmailApprovalRequest objects (were only available in approval_base module settings) * New methods in EnhancedSLAComputation to ease extensibility * Open Hours mandatory for Coverage Window |
2019-03-26 | 1.4.5 | * Fix: Approval reminder in edit mode : double pop-up |
2018-12-13 | 1.4.4 | * Fix spanish translation files encoding * Add missing reconciliation key to the ApprovalScheme class * Add missing reconciliation key to the ExtendedApprovalScheme class * Fix UI glitch on approval form * Improve jQuery compatibility (jQuery 3 since iTop 2.6) |
2018-06-27 | 1.4.3 | DE translation update |
2018-06-26 | 1.4.2 | - New translations (ES, BR) and fix CSV import of TriggerOnApprovalRequest. - Fix attachments unavailable in portal when object waiting for approval was not within user's scopes. |
2018-01-26 | 1.4.1 | Bug fix: Extension could not be installed if Enhanced Portal was not selected. |
2017-11-14 | 1.4.0 | Requires 2.4.0 or higher: Approval in Enhanced Portal |
2017-11-14 | 1.3.5 | Bug fix: Tooltips not showing for all comments when several answers of the same user (Typically rejected then accepted an user request) |
2017-09-27 | 1.3.4 | fix 2.4 compatibility issue |
2017-09-01 | 1.3.3 | - Comments recorded in the log: loosing carriage returns - Fix Check/Uncheck All on portal summary page - Do not skip level 2 if there is no approver on level 1 - Missing index, slowing down the display of a ticket - dishardcoded menu group “Helpdesk” position - Fix corrupted coverage windows when edited from a browser having a timezone different from the timezone of iTop |
2016-11-30 | 1.3.2 | Approval Emails configurable by the mean of triggers/actions with placeholders - Select the step ending condition in each step of the approval rule - Do not ask several times an approval to the same person |
2016-08-09 | 1.2.1 | - XML-based implementation in order to ease some customizations - include a library for the support of approvals in the enhanced customer portal (requires further customizations though) |
2016-07-11 | 1.2.0 | Now requires iTop 2.2.0! - Bug fix: “Portal users” redirected to the customer portal when trying to approve - Date and time correctly formatted (if iTop version >= 2.3.0) - Hide the shortcut buttons (Assign) on the ticket creation page, ONLY IF there are some approval rules in the DB - Prevent overflow of interval to the next day when dragging/dropping intervals in the calendar |
2015-09-30 | 1.1.3 | Disable the standard attributes UserRequest::approver_id and approver_email, as they do not make sense when this module is installed. Removed the “plus” button from the Approval Rule edition form, to workaround a bug in the coverage windows creation form (when shown as a dialog, requires a fix in the core of iTop, related to the component “SLA With Coverage Windows” version >=2.1.0, or the module “combodo-coverage-windows-computation>=2.0.0) |
2014-12-18 | 1.1.2 | Manually send a reminder ; Support of several executions on the same ticket (works retroactively with data recorded prior to this version) ; Record something into the log even if the comment is left empty (was already done when bypassing the process) ; If an approver already gave her answer the approve/reject menus must be hidden ; If a user bypasses the process, and if her account has a contact defined, then the identifier of the user (shown in the header of the new log entry) must be the contact friendly name (not the user login) ; Changed the misleading message “is now complete with failure” into “is now complete with result REJECTED” ; Prevent the CRON from creating one CMDBChange record per minute ; Fixed typos in the french dictionary ; Changed the module name (internal) |
2014-04-24 | 1.0.3 | Better error reporting when an email address is wrong or missing. In particular when the module has just been installed, the configuration entry sender_email is left empty and this produces a scary error message when the email transport is SMTP |
2014-03-07 | 1.0.2 | Integration of the German translation (thanks to ITOMIG GmbH) |
2014-03-05 | 1.0.1 | First release (fixes a bug found the prototype: always approve on timeout, whatever the setting in the approval rule) |
Use the Standard installation process for this extension.
email_sender
and configure trigger/action
to ensure “Approval eMails” delivery.
The following settings are available to configure the module:
Module | Parameter | Type | Description | Default Value |
---|---|---|---|---|
approval-base | email_sender | string | Sender eMail address, as seen in the approval email. If left blank, sending the email will fail. | |
approval-base | email_reply_to | string | Default “reply to” eMail address for the approval email. If empty defaults to email_sender | |
approval-base | comment_attcode | string | Attribute into which the user comments will be reported. Can be a case log or text. The comments are all aggregated. Note: the comment can also be viewed as a tooltip. | (optional) |
approval-base | list_last_first | boolean | In case several executions occur, drives the order in which the results of the executions are displayed (vertically). | false |
approval-base | enable_reminder | boolean | Enable the feature “send a reminder”. | true |
approval-extended | enable-admin-abort | boolean | Allow defined profiles to bypass the approval process. Profiles allowed to bypass the process are defined in the variable bypass_profiles. | true |
approval-extended | target_state | string | state that may trigger the approval process. The event ev_wait_for_approval must exist on this state, ending on wait_for_approval state. | new |
approval-extended | bypass_profiles | string | CSV list of profiles. Having any of the given profiles is sufficient to be allowed to bypass approval processes. Set to an empty string to deny the feature to anybody. | Administrator, Service Manager |
approval-extended | reuse_previous_answers | boolean | If a person is approver at both level then his level 1 decision is reused at level 2 | true |
The following standard settings might be of interest when setting up the approval feature:
Email notification is based on Trigger/Action and email content can be tailored to your need with HTML format and placeholders.
A default trigger is created at installation
as well as 3 default actions with body in English, French and German.
You can of course edit this message to make it yours, here is the english default version for example of possible placeholders:
$approver->html(friendlyname)$
, $this->html(ref)$
$this->html(caller_id_friendlyname)$
$this->html(title)$
$this->html(service_name)$
$this->html(servicesubcategory_name)$
Description:
$this->html(description)$
Additional information:
$this->html(service_details)$
$approval_link$
You must create the linkage between trigger and action of the language you want to use.
When a User Request is entering the state new, the approval engine verifies if there is an approval rule defined for the corresponding service subcategory. If yes, then the state of the user request is set to wait for approval and a notification is sent to the approvers defined in the approval rule. Only the approvers corresponding to the first level are notified. Once the request is approved, and if a second level has been defined, then the second level approvers are notified. Should the approval be rejected (by an approver, or on timeout), then the process finishes in any case.
The email contains a web link to display the web page to approve or reject the request:
The approvers will have a delay defined in the approval rule to give their answers. This delay takes into account the coverage window defined in the approval rule.
Once the approval delay has expired, the approval process terminates. The result (approved or rejected) is then taken in the property Automatically approved if no answer at Level 1/2 of the approval rule.
The User Request will then continue its way through its lifecycle, depending on the approval status: rejected or approved.
From the Service Management menu, click on Approval rules:
The pages show a list of already defined approval rules. Click on the button “new” to create a new one:
An approval rule is identifier by it name. The coverage window is used to compute the approval delay.
The fields Approval level 1 and 2 define, via an OQL query, the list of approvers for each approval level.
These queries must return elements having an email attribute (e.g. Person or Team).
It is possible to use the place holders :this->attribute
that make reference to the attributes of the user request.
For instance :this->caller_id
for the caller, :this->service_id
for the service …
All attributes defined in the data model for a service request can be used.
New
status. allowed organizations
but the approver does not belong to one of those organizations
The field Automatically approved if no answer determines if the request will be approved or rejected if there is no answer after the defined delay.
The field approval delay (hours) defines the delay in hours for each level of approval, only hours within the coverage windows are counted. If you leave it empty or set it to 0, UserRequest will stay forever in waiting for approval
state, until one of the approvers accept or reject it.
The field approval ending is useful with multiple approvers to determine, how to behave with multiple actions:
ends on first approve
: All must reject for Request to be rejected.Automatically approved if no answer
ends on first reject
previous default behavior: all must approved.Automatically approved if no answer
ends on first reply
= first to act is the decision maker.Once the approval rule has been defined, you can assign it to a service subcategory, either from the approval rule itself (tab Service subcategory) or from the service subcategory:
Approver with an iTop login can connect anytime and check if they have Requests pending their approval. From the Helpdesk menu, click on Ongoing approvals:
The page shows a list of the User Requests having an approval process running, and for which your approval is being requested:
Approver without iTop login, can still approve or reject Request, but they must have received the email notification with the onetime usage links allowing him to approve or reject without being connected to iTop.
If the approver has an iTop login then the email provided link points him to iTop (Console or Portal depending on his access). In that case, the link provided in the email can only be used with the approver iTop login.
From the user request, open the Other actions menu and select Approve or Reject:
The approval form is displayed:
After the reply has been given, you are redirected to the user request and a banner reminds you the outcome of your reply.
If you are an administrator, and if the setup allows it, then you have a menu to bypass the process:
The approval form is then a little different than the standard reply form: it reminds you that bypassing the process is a little different.
As soon as a user request has been through an approval process, the tab Approval status shows detailed information about the ongoing or terminated approval.
In the above example, the deadline is displayed in bold: 15th of april at 17:32.
Click on the button “send a reminder” to send a new message to the approver (confirmation required). This feature can be disabled by setting the parameter enable_reminder to false.
After the reply has been given, the status appears in clear:
Move your mouse over the image next to the approver's name, and you will get the date of the answer and her comment if any has been given:
A new menu appears in the Enhanced Portal, which allow an approver to retrieve all User Requests waiting for her approval, and one by one or in bulk mode, accept or reject them.
A comment is required in case of rejection, so the button is disabled as long as the comment is empty. A confirmation is required in both cases.
When clicking on the link to a User Request, the ticket's details are displayed with an extra comment field and two buttons at the bottom of the details to accept or reject it:
Question: What happen if the approval rule returns zero approvers, on all level of approval?
Answer: The request is never entering the approval cycle.
Question: My approvers are not using the Portal. How to send them a link to approve in the console?
Answer: To get this behavior, create a real link in the notification:
You may remove or not the $approval_link$
placeholder. Don't remove it if at least one approver has no access to the console.
Question: can we hide the Approbal Brick in the Portal to users based on their Profiles?
Answer: Yes, as any brick in the Portal it supports to specify the Profiles which are allowed or denied to see a given brick
<brick id="approvals" xsi:type="Combodo\iTop\Portal\Brick\ApprovalBrick" _delta="must_exist"> <security _delta="define"> <allowed_profiles> <![CDATA[SELECT URP_Profiles WHERE name = 'Portal power user']]> </allowed_profiles> <denied_profiles/> </security> </brick>
Here we are allowing only Portal power user
but do what makes sense for you
Question: Can I have an approval for New Phone request, only if the price is above a given amount?
Answer: Here we will present an example, where the user is providing in its Request the price of the requested phone in a Customized Request form, and if that price is above a given level, let say 100, then we want a particular person (with id=6) part of the same organization as the caller to approve at the second level.
SELECT Person AS p JOIN Organization AS o ON p.org_id=o.id /* A path is required from Person */ JOIN UserRequest AS u ON u.org_id=o.id /* to the UserRequest to set conditions */ JOIN TemplateFieldValue AS v ON v.obj_key=u.id WHERE v.template_name="New phone" AND v.field_code='price' AND v.field_value > 100 /* Check if the Price is above 100 */ AND u.id = :this->id /* We want to use the present UserRequest */ AND p.id=6 /* We want an identified person, always the same */
This is just an example, the price could be on the phone model typology and the user would just select the phone model.
Question: How to automatically send a reminder to Approvers after a given delay?
Answer: There is no easy way to do this today.
waiting for approval
, on the transition set the approval-requested-on date with now().waiting on approval
, since exactly delay*n
days, and send a reminder (assuming there is an accessible PHP function to trigger this reminder
Question: Can I have more than 2 levels of approvals?
Answer: Yes, that requires to write an extension.
ApprovalRule
, add new attributes copied from the level1 and level2 attributesExtendedApprovalScheme::GetApprovalScheme
, and copy the paragraph about string “2” and replace in the copy, “2” by “3”.