BCM - Approval Configuration for Plans Only Half Working

[Zachary Laflamm]

I've run into a number of difficulties with setting up an Approval Configuration for Plan records.

I can set up the Approval to get sent out to a Plan's Owner, using the Approval Configuration built in to BCM. Listed below are the issues I'm running in to with the configuration. The documentation available does not mention anything related to these issues, and I have found little-to-no information elsewhere online:

1. No Approve/Reject notification is sent out to the user. I have instead configured one to get sent out on a State change to "Pending Approval", but it does not contain the Approve/Reject options. From what I can find online, this has something to do with the Plan table not extending Task. Is there a work-around to this?

2. The approval that gets sent to the user does not link back to the Plan record. The "Approval For" field is empty. Wondering if I am doing something incorrectly with the Plan Approval Configuration, as my BIA Approval Configuration does contain a link to the record in the approval's "Approval For" field.

3. From within the BCM workspace, if I go to a Plan record that is currently Pending Approval and has a "Approvals (1)" tab containing the pending approval, I cannot Approve or Reject it from the BCM Workspace. As far as I know, it can only be approved or rejected from the "My Approvals" section on the Platform side. Am I missing something?

As far as I can tell, this is all intended behaviour. Thanks for any comments / information.

[Amit Gujarathi · Accepted solution]

HI @Zachary Laflamm ,
I trust you are doing great.

1. Regarding the issue of not receiving an Approve/Reject notification, the problem may be related to the Plan table not extending Task. To work around this, you can create a business rule or a workflow on the Plan table that triggers when the State changes to "Pending Approval." In this rule or workflow, you can include a script that sends out a customized notification to the user, containing the Approve/Reject options. Here's an example of a script you can use:

// Assuming you have the user's email stored in a variable called 'userEmail'
var approveRejectOptions = "<a href='sysapproval_approve.do?sys_id=" + current.sys_id + "'>Approve</a> / <a href='sysapproval_reject.do?sys_id=" + current.sys_id + "'>Reject</a>";
var approvalMessage = "Please review the Plan and take action: " + approveRejectOptions;

var email = new GlideEmailOutbound();
email.setSubject("Plan Approval Required");
email.setBody(approvalMessage);
email.addRecipient(userEmail);
email.send();

1. If the approval sent to the user does not link back to the Plan record and the "Approval For" field is empty, you might need to check your Plan Approval Configuration. Ensure that you have correctly configured the "Approval For" field mapping to the Plan table's record. If it still doesn't work, you can try adding a business rule or a workflow on the Plan Approval table that sets the "Approval For" field with the corresponding Plan record upon creation. Here's an example of a script you can use in a business rule:

current.approval_for = current.document_id.getRefRecord();

1. You're correct that in the BCM workspace, you cannot directly approve or reject a pending approval from the "Approvals (1)" tab on the Plan record. The approval action needs to be performed from the "My Approvals" section on the platform side. This is the intended behavior, and there's no built-in capability to approve or reject from the BCM workspace.

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[Zachary Laflamm]

Thank you so much for the detailed response!