Add an Approval to Standard Change Proposal

[Mike Cory]

We are working on configuring the Standard Change Proposal process.  Below are the requirements:

• Add an approval (Technical Approval) before the CAB Approval. The Technical Approval needs to get set to the Assignment Group Manager. 
• Send a Technical Approval Notification to the Assignment Group Manager

Workflow config

• Added an Approval User activity before the CAB Group Approval
• Under the Approvers section, dynamically set the Users to the assignment group.manager
• Submitted some test proposals and the approver is getting set correctly but can’t get the notification to fire.

Notification

• Copied the OOB “Standard Change Proposal Request” notification that runs on the Approval table but cannot get it to trigger.
• I kept the same Event name: “std_change_proposal.approval.inserted”. 
• NOTE:  I tried creating and using a new Event, but could not get it to work
• I thought I could use Standard Change Proposal “State” value as a condition to trigger the Technical Approval, but I can’t see State in the related list from Approval table.

It seems like there is some conflict with the OOB Business Rule (Approval Events) that is causing the issue, but I don’t know how to make it work.  Is there a better way to make this happen?

Thank you,

Mike

[James Chun]

Hi @Mike Cory,

Is there a reason why you copied the OOB notification? Since you are reusing the same event, there is no reason to create a new one.

Have you verified if the Event is triggered at all? You can check it under the Events table [sysevent] and search the 'Name' column with your event name (std_change_proposal.approval.inserted).

If an event is not created, something is not working on the BR as you mentioned.

If an event was created, can you verify if its state is set to processed?

If the above is true, it's more likely to be with something else (e.g. user doesn't have an email address, the user unsubscribed to the notification, or something else)

Cheers

[Mike Cory]

Hi @James Chun 

The std_change_proposal.approval.inserted activity gets triggered correctly.   The problem is outlined below, and I can’t get it working correctly:

There are two approval activities in the workflow (see screenshot below) with the following expectations.

1. Std Change Tech Approver (set the Assignment Group Manager as the Approver and send an email to the Assignment Group Manager)
2. Std Change CAB Approver (set the CAB Approver(s) as the Approver and send an email to the CAB Approver(s)).

There are two Notifications.  

1. Standard Change Proposal - Tech Approval (Assign Grp Mgr)
2. Standard Change Proposal - CAB Approval

Both Notifications use the Event name “std_change_proposal.approval.inserted”

Current Workflow Activity (not working as expected)

1. Standard Change Proposal is submitted for Approval.
2. The workflow hits the Std Change Tech Approver approval activity and sets the Assignment Group Manager correctly.
3. The Event triggers both notifications and sends both to the Assignment Group Manager

Preferred Workflow activity

1. Submit Standard Change Proposal for Approval
2. Workflow triggers the Std Change Tech Approver approval activity, sets the Approver as the Assignment Group Manager, and sends an email to the Assignment Group Manager
3. After the Assignment Group Manager approves, the workflow hits the Std Change CAB Approver activity. Sets the Approver to the CAB Approver(s)  and sends an email to the CAB Approver(s).

Thanks,

Mike

[James Chun · Accepted solution]

Hi @Mike Cory,

Thanks, correct me if I am wrong here, the issue is that you have two notifications that are sent to the Assignment Group Manager, which is the first approval activity.

I am assuming that the two email notifications (Standard Change Proposal - Tech Approval (Assign Grp Mgr) and Standard Change Proposal - CAB Approval) both have the value of 'Weight' set to 0 and have no 'Conditions' configured.

Some options to explore:

• Consolidate the two notifications into one. I am not sure why you would have two separate notifications. If it's because the content of the email is different per the approver/recipient, you can write up an email script to populate the body of the email dynamically.

• Use the 'Condition' field. I assumed that the second approval (Std Change CAB Approver) would be a Group approval but seems like it's not. If you can change it to use the Group approval instead, you can add a condition in the email notification to check if it's a group approval or not and then fire the email if the condition is satisfied. In your example, it will be something like
  
  • Tech Approval - Group is empty
  • CAB Approval - Group is not empty

Cheers

[Mike Cory]

Thanks James.  I replaced the Approval User activity with Approval Group and then set the conditions on both notifications as you noted.  All working fine now.  Thanks again!