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Approval Issue

CHESTER RAMOS

Hi there,

Good day. I am new here... We are currently on the verge of deploying JIRA Service Desk to our Prod Environment.. But was stopped by IT-Audit Department due to approvals...

At the moment our forms are designed this way

1. An employee from Finance Team raise a service request (let's assume the request is admin access to a database)

2. There is a custom field drop down box, here the employee will select the Finance Team Department head for (for first approval).. There are about 20-Department heads in this custom field drop down box.

3. Once approved by the department head , the request will be routed to the system owners and then assignee for final approvals and implementation..

Though this is pretty linear process , The IT Audit Department raised a concern that the first approval drop down box can cause problems, such as requestor selecting the wrong department heads.. which make sense.

As an alternative, can we then automate approvals based on the organization of the requestor?

Eg:

An Employee from Admin department request for credentials for MYSQL.

The request will then be sent automatically to admin department head without dropdown boxes....

In other words, the service request forms will need to automate approvers based on the organization of the requestor.

In flow form

Requestor from Admin Dept --> Hidden field selects first approvers based on organization or requestor ---> Final Approvers (system owners) --> Assignee

Thanks

Accepted answers

All comments

Dirk Ronsmans

Hi @CHESTER RAMOS and welcome the community!

Yours is actually not that strange a request and I can surely see why the IT-Audit flagged this. It would be like selecting your buddy to approve you Purchase Order for that fancy new toy

Sadly, Jira does not include anything that allows you to group users in to departments and build up an organisation structure.

Now depending on the app you have on your instance there is a way that i've implemented this in the past.

We use 2 apps:

Insight (asset management database) (which is now included in JSM Premium and Enterprise (so if you are on Standard that might be an issue)
Scriptrunner

What we would do is actually build the organisation structure in Insight, pretty much import the users there and add their manager/n+1/department or department head as an attribute.

Then at creation of the SR we would run a postfunction on the initial create transition to (based on the reporter) pull the data from Insight and set the approver.

it involves some scripting and the use of a (C/A)MDB.

But basically when it comes down to it you need a place to store the information first which indicated what department a user belongs to.

After that you can use a "dumb" automation which just uses conditions to set the approver, or something like scriptrunner to fully automate it with a more dynamic script.

So I'd like to ask as a first question:

Where/how do you store the information to which department a user belongs?

CHESTER RAMOS

Hi Dirk,

Thanks for the quick response. Highly appreciate.

To answer your question, we do not have any form of downloaded app or database to manage customers information.

At most we organize it here (see screen cap)

What I was thinking ...

1. Group customers/users based on organization unit

2. In each org. unit, there will be a "master" approver (say it will be their team lead or a organization manager perhaps). In other words, if a user raise an SR in "Cashier Org", the ticket will be routed to the "master" approver in Cashier.

(lastly the "master" approver will be a hidden field, therefore the info on who is approval will be based on the organization unit the requestor is in)

Dirk Ronsmans

Hey @CHESTER RAMOS ,

I justed looked at the Automation rules and there is a condtion for "reporter/user" is member of oganization "x"

so I guess you could create your organizations in the customers, then create hardcoded rules for each organization and then as the action do a "edit issue" and set the approver to that "master approver"

It will be hardcoded (organization = x then approver = y) but I think this will be the only way to do this without any additional app to automate and store the information

CHESTER RAMOS

Hi Dirk

Thanks for the reply... My apology for constantly getting your tips and advise (I am new to JIRA).

I tried the solution you have provided, details as follow

Organization = Dummy (containing 3 dummy test customers)

Edit Issue field = Approval for "dummy's" Business Unit Manager. His name is "Herbin Testing"

Step 3... Now I am stuck.

Please refer to the screen cap attached to this.

Thanks again for being helpful.

JIRA qn.jpg

...

And now stuck in step 3.

Dirk Ronsmans

that's what we're here for

So in step 3 you don't need to use the "more options", if you open that be sure to remove everything there.

You'll have to make step 3 hardcoded now and on the part where it says "type to find matching users" you should find Herbin Testing no?

for each organization you'll have to then create such an If/then

CHESTER RAMOS

Hi Dirk

Thanks for the response.

What I am trying to do is to create a rule with less coding.

Please refer the the screen cap below.

1. I am using "Request for VPN Access" to test this rule, which is one of JIRA default SRs.

1.1 "Approver" a JIRA default User Picker (multiple users) as hidden.

2. As you can see from the Rule, I have selected the user "Herbin Testing" as the approver

for the users in the organization called "Dummy"

3. Added "And: Approve/Decline Request". But did not select either auto "approve" or "decline" (Unsure if Herbin will receive any email notification)

4. Turn on rule, but.. I am stuck in this "loading circle" for the last 15 min. (see screen cap below)--- Possible a JIRA issue, unless there is something wrong with this rule I create ("created a loop??"

Having said that for this testing

1. A new automation rule for individual organization

2. "User Picker (multiple users)" called approver will be utilized

3. Select different approvers (eg: head of department); varies per organization.

4. And use "Approve/Deny" request.

5. Run automation rule

Also, I would like to apologize for being a newbie..

Thanks

CHESTER RAMOS

Hi, though it this does not make any sense,

I have managed to run-the-rule , but removed "And: Approve/Decline Request".

CHESTER RAMOS

Tried this..

1. A Customer in the organization called "ITSD"

2. Left Chester Sample (User Picker (multiple users)" which is supposed to be the head of department first approver empty.

3. Screen cap shows "Approval - Chester" in the work flow. This is where the supposed auto approval will in the automation will trigger.

4. Last Screen capture is the automation that is enabled.

CHESTER RAMOS

Please refer to the previous post.

1. Logged in using another browser (Firefox) as "Michael Jackson"

2. Raised "VPN Access Request"

3. Given ITSM-265.

4. Checked the ticket queue , but ended up without the supposed automatic selected approver, I needed to select an approver

Now, I am stuck..

Dirk Ronsmans

Hi @CHESTER RAMOS ,

Just fyi (and to make it easier on reading this) could you for future replies use a reply to one of the answers instead of making new "answers"? It just reads very hard and replies on replies are more conversation style

For now I'll try to answer each one separate and we'll see where we end up.

For this one, a couple of things:

You don't need to add the approvers to the Request Type form. The field exists in the backend and on the Agent view so if you don't set it to a fixed default value on the form or have the end user choose a value you can just remove it from the Request type form. (not hidden, just gone)
In your automation rule, the Approve/Decline actions is not needed and best left out. This would auto-approve (or decline) the request which we dont want.
When you turned on the rule, did it actually enable? (you screenshotted that but I'm not sure why)

Dirk Ronsmans

So that's already good We don't need that action!

Dirk Ronsmans

So I'd start by taking out that approval field on the request form.

Since it's empty it might mess up the value we set later and like I said, you don't need it if you're not gonna fill it on the form (or set a default value on the form)

Dirk Ronsmans

Ok let's recap this

Don't put those fields where you are going to store the approver in on the form (not hidden either) it's just not necassary.
What you set in your automation rule looks good,
1. edit issue
2. set field approvers
3. set a value

so, so far so good, you have the rule set to manually run (is this still the case?) if so, did you actually run it?

And maybe a question just to be sure, on your approval step in your workflow, how is that configured? Did you set it to get the approver from that field?

CHESTER RAMOS

Hi Dirk

Thanks for the response again. My Apology for having separate replies, I was actually sending out replies after each test/trials.

Having said that, I have already configured out how to auto send to individual unit managers, thanks for your guidance.

Please see the screen cap below...

What I am trying to configure is how to add Head of departments in automation rule (see the second screen capture).

In conclusion .

1. Jim (a customer) trigger a request: Eg: Ticket #123 (WORKED)

2. Based on automation rule, Jim's supervisor/unit head (Mark) will receive an email containing information about Ticket # 123 including approval/decline action. (WORKED)

3. What I am trying to established, is that the unit director (Alice) shall receive an email as a watcher. (Currently in 'trial and error' mode).

Any advise Dirk?

Thanks

Dirk Ronsmans

Hi @CHESTER RAMOS ,

Great! Good to hear you're making progress

What exactly now isn't working for you? The Head is being added as an approver and gets the email based on the customer notification ( so far so good)

Now you also want to add a 2nd person to keep in the loop I guess? You could indeed do that by adding them as watcher (there is a specific "manage watchers" action)

The thing with watchers tho is that they will only get notified for subsequent changes.

Also you'll have to see if they need to be a watcher or a request participant (that is an intenral user vs a customer that it is shared with)

If it is just a one off email to also include them then you'll be good with the "Send email" action imo..

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