Apply OOB Approval/Rejection Link to Custom Email Notification

[Dennis Bui1]

Hi Everyone,

Is it possible to add OOB email templates mailto.approval and mailto.rejection to a custom email notification which allows approvers to approve/reject by clicking on the link? Please see "Pending Approval.JPG" for reference. Also, how can we test this functionality?

These OOB email templates are being used in conjunction with OOB Business Rule, Event, and Notification in which they are all applying to Approval [sysapproval_approver] table.

At our client, we have a requirement as follows:
- Current approvals for an SER (Solution Enhancement Request): ROM (Rough Order Magnitude) and Final Estimate
- Two new approvals: Director approval and VP approval. When pending VP approval, if VP needs more information/clarification, he/she will update the field "Additional Information" (drop-down with options None, Needed, and Provided) on RITM record to "Needed", a notification will be sent to Director. Director will provide the clarification and update the field "Additional Information" to "Provided", a notification will be sent to VP. Since this notification applies to RITM table (NOT Approval table), we wonder if we can use OOB email templates mailto.approval/rejection in this notification so that VP can approve/reject by clicking on respective link (at this point, VP already had the approval email initially after Director approval, but we don't want him to go back looking for that email to approve/reject the SER).

We have also tried below approach:
- Create a new Business Rule that will run when the field "Additional Information" updated to "Provided"
- This BR will query the Approval [sysapproval_approver] table (condition is current RITM number = Approval for)
- A new event will be triggered by the BR passing the glide object of approval record
- Once the event is fired, a new notification will be sent to approver (based on the "Approver" field of the approval record). This notification applies to Approval [sysapproval_approver] table and include the email templates maito.approval/rejection

However, after multiple tests, even the event was processed (check in event log), but the notification wasn't sent (check in email outbox). We are thinking maybe because the notification applies to Approval table whereas BS and Event apply to RITM table. It seems that BR, Event, and Notification have to apply to the same table.

We are sorry for the long post, if anyone can help with any suggestions, comments, references, etc., it will be much appreciated.

Thanks and Regards,
Dennis Bui

[Community Alums]

Hi Daniel,

not sure if I got it correct - you need to use mailto:approve/mailto:reject in other email approval (like new approval email but your custom one). If this is the requirement - then yes you can. Note that mailto:approve/reject is just triggering new email with prefilling the subject , respectfully with <record>:approve/reject. You can do and extra (third type of option, like "Need more info" - I've done such thing in the past). 

Additionally, the approvals are bound with Reference number (either hidden or visible in the email) which is actually used by the inbound actions to map to the approval and seen in sys_approval table. 

Hope i was able to explain shortly how it works (and not putting more confusion than clarity)

Let me know if I can assist somehow 🙂

Cheers,

Joro

[Dennis Bui1]

Hi Joro,

Thank you for your quick response.

So basically what you are saying is mailto:mailto.approval/rejection can be used in any custom notifications that applies to any table (i.e., Requested Item, Change Request, etc.), when an approver click on the link, the system will match the trigger record (a Requested Item, a Change Request, etc.) to the approval record in Approval [sysapproval_approver] table, is my understanding correct?

Is there anyway that we can test whether clicking on approval/rejection link works as expected

Please take a look at below screenshots for our custom notification's configuration and let me know your thoughts:

.

Thank you in advance !

Regards,
Dennis Bui

[Community Alums]

Hi Dennis,

it looks fine but can I see how an email looks like (approval email) ? Also there is an inbound action for these - can I see that as well ?

Cheers,

Joro

[Dennis Bui1]

Hi Joro,

The OOB Inbound Action is "Update Approval Request", it applies to Approval [sysapproval_approver] table and work in conjunction with OOB Email Template mailto.approval/rejection, OOB Notification (Approval Request Notification), and OOB Event approval.insert. They all apply to the same Approval table.

My custom Notification applies to RITM table, hence OOB mailto.approval does not work with it. I have tested multiple times with various approaches trying to use OOB functionalities/mechanisms as much as possible without success.

The last option I am thinking of is to have the custom Notification, custom Email Template, and a new custom Inbound Action apply to the same RITM table. Then the complication is in developing the Inbound Action to process approval/rejection.

Regards,
Dennis Bui