Service Approval process

[paulcreedy]

I'm trying to get my head around how to add approvers to requests.  I've read a number of articles around Request Types, Workflows and adding an approval pick list field or custom field and an approval on a workflow

The following documentation shows three scenarios in which an approval using that method can be used but it doesn't cover the approvals on a services.  

Approvals documentation:

Configuring Jira Service Management approvals | Administering Jira applications Data Center and Server 8.18 | Atlassian Documentation

Services have their own Change Approver field against the service already.

Therefore as well as the three scenarios above I was hoping that the approver could be the user that was already added against the service.  Therefore when a request type is raised against that service, there would be no need for a custom 'approver' field because it should be taken from the 'Change Approver' listed against the service being changed.

Could someone point me in the right direction of how to implement approvals for changes to a service, using the prefilled Change Approver against that service?

[Mikael Sandberg · Accepted solution]

The way to do it is that you have to go into the workflow and on the status that you are using for approvals edit the approval step to get the approvers from the affected services:

[paulcreedy]

Thank you I'll that out.

On a similar track I'm also using a request type off the built in [system] change issue type.

That type has a built in workflow with an approval step linked to a service.  I've made a group for CAB, and put a user in it. 

In the service I've brought in that CAB group as approvers.

I create a change request, moved it to the Authorize step which is from what I can tell should send a notification to those in the service group.

No notifications are sent to the approvers, and the request is now stuck on the Authorise step with the only options being 'back to planning' and 'mark as cancelled' because it's waiting for an approval before allowing it to move to 'awaiting implementation'.

I'm expecting an approval notification to those in the cab group to be sent with a deny/approve option bit it doesn't arrive.

[Mikael Sandberg]

You are correct, if you are using the Approver group the Customer notification for approval required is not triggering. So you could either change the workflow to use the Affected services and Approvers field for the approval step, this will add all the members of the Approval group set on the service to the Approvers field, or you could use automation to notify the group.

[Mikael Sandberg]

Correction, I just tested and the email notification should be sent also when you are using the Approval group.

[paulcreedy]

That's what I was hoping, I was under the impression that the approval process was baked into that service type and should send the notification without tinkering with the workflow, but it never arrives.  As I'm on the free plan I also can't access the logs to see if that says anything.

The usual, xyz has added a reply/comment/changed the status and all those nonfictions trigger emails to that same address and for the same user.

I'm starting to wonder if some sort of automation rule or something didn't get created automatically when I created the project, that should have been created.

Looking at the actual request, the Affected services/Approvers group is there on the form and prepopulated from the group linked to the service.  So it's gone and pre-filled that in for me, but not sent the email.

Paul

[paulcreedy]

I notice in Automations there is one for auto approving it if its a low risk. Again, this was auto created.

It's the only change request automation in there.

I created a change request with a low risk and it skipped the authorise step and went straight to implementation.  Which is the correct workflow for a low risk.

I'm back to wondering if I have an automation missing that should be sending the email.

Do you have any auto created CM automations other than the one I have below maybe?

[paulcreedy]

After more digging I can see that the auto created workflow for a change already has the approve options ticked, and affected services selected.

So this matches up to what a 'custom' implementation would be except that jira has gone and created all these for me when the project was created.

Still not emails to the approvers in the affected services though :-(

Really not sure what I'm missing here to get this working.

[Mikael Sandberg]

Are the users in the group getting other emails from Jira? When I tested it with the approver group it took a bit longer to receive the email, but it did show up as expected.

[paulcreedy]

Yes, I'm getting the usual xxx has commented on the ticket etc.

Just did another test and is where it's starting to get a bit weird.

In the CAB user group that has just myself in for testing as the admin, I added in a customer user.  Again, myself but a different account and a different email address pretending to be a customer for testing purposes.

Did another test and amazingly the customer me, actually had the approve/deny email sent out!  However when I pressed approve in the email, it just takes me to a view only version of the ticket and doesn't do the approval. 

I'm now wondering if I'm not getting the email because I'm an admin user. The non admin account did receive the approve/deny email but couldn't approve it.

Paul

[Mikael Sandberg]

Go to Customer notification > Approval required and see if you checked the box "Exclude person who caused the action". Also, if you are the reporter of the request you may get different results, I know SLAs are sometimes not triggering if you are both the reporter and the assignee on a request.

[paulcreedy]

Just checked that setting (didn't even know that existed), unfortunately it's greyed out because I'm currently on a free plan. It's not ticked though.

You may be onto something though.  I'll do more testing with more users to see if that makes a different.

Thank you for your time on this so far.

[paulcreedy]

To follow up on this I've tested this with another user and.....

If the Admin creates the change and that admin user is also an approver on the service, the approval email does NOT turn up.

However the other users on the approval list do get the approval email.

So it does seem that an admin can't or doesn't receive approval emails but a non admin user does.

It would be good if this could be replicated by someone else and or get a comment from Atlassian support on this observation.  To see if there is something wrong with my set up, whether this is expected or even a bug that needs looking at.

[paulcreedy]

Actually this is not quite true.  It would seem that the authorisation email doesn't go to the person that raised the ticket.  If another user raises the change, then the admin DOES get the approval email.

So it seems you cannot approve your own changes.

[Karyna Tyrnavska _SaaSJet]

Hi, @paulcreedy ! As an alternative in such case, you can try Business Process Manager add-on, developed by my team. 

So, you can add the approver step and tune it according to your issue needs. If you have added multiple approvers, the assignee of the issue will change according to the need for approval.