Using CA Service Catalog for Administrators › PDA Approval › How to Set Up PDA Approval

How to Set Up PDA Approval

Enabling PDA approval gives administrators, managers, and other key personnel the flexibility to approve and reject requests from outside the traditional office setting, for example, while traveling or working at a client site. Approving and rejecting requests using a PDA (PDA approval) is similar to the same process using a laptop or desktop (office computers). However, PDA approval includes some additional requirements and some limitations when compared to the traditional process. Complete these tasks to enable PDA approval.

1. Verify that you have installed and configured CA Service Catalog; especially verify that you have set up CA Service Catalog to approve requests using either CA IT PAM or CA Workflow.

   Note: For details about setting up CA Service Catalog to use either CA IT PAM or CA Workflow to approve requests, see the Integration Guide.

2. Verify that CA Service Catalog supports the mobile devices and mobile browsers that you want to use for PDA approval.

   You can approve and reject requests using the Blackberry browser on a Blackberry or the Safari browser on an iPhone. The minimum requirements for PDA devices are as follows:

   • Its email software must be able to render HTML.
   • Its browser must support basic JavaScript features and functions.
3. Configure your PDA to accept emails from CA Service Catalog. This task applies to all users, regardless of the method of PDA approval (direct email approval or logged in approval) that you chose in later steps.

   For assistance, see your PDA documentation.

4. Set the Request Management configuration parameters to enable PDA approval.

   When PDA approval is enabled, approvers receive request approval emails automatically on both their office computers and PDAs, to notify them that a request is pending their approval.

5. Review the limitations of PDA approval.
6. Review direct email approval, including its prerequisites and the comparison to logged in approval, and decide whether to use direct email approval or logged in approval as your method of approving and rejecting requests using a PDA. As a best practice, use either method, but not both methods.
7. If you decide to use direct email approval, set up direct email approval to meet your requirements.

   If you decide to use logged in approval, skip the topics for setting up direct email approval.

8. Review and customize the request approval email in use at your implementation.

   If you have already installed (or upgraded) and configured CA Service Catalog, you already have an existing request approval email that approvers access through office computers. CA Service Catalog automatically uses that email for both office computers and PDAs. When you enable PDA approval through either method (direct email approval or logged in approval), you review and customize this email to achieve these goals:

   • Configure the text and links of the email to enable approval and rejection by either logged in approval (the default) or direct email approval
   • As a best practice, configure the text and links of the email to enable approval and rejection at only one of the following levels:
     • The entire request only (the default)
     • Individual services – This option applies only when you use the Notify Approver action to send the request approval email.
     • Individual service options – This option applies only when both of the following are true: you use the Notify Approver action to send the request approval email and you use a discrete request life cycle with approval set at the service option level (Allow Discrete Handling of Service Options After=Submitted.

       Otherwise, approvers cannot approve and reject individual service options, even if you configure your request approval email to support this feature.

   • Help ensure that the email is user friendly on all devices, including PDAs

   To achieve these goals, do one of the following, whichever is applicable for your implementation:

   • Customize your Notify Approver action to support PDA Approval, by configuring the request approval email sent by this action
   • Customize your USM_Approval process definition to support PDA Approval, by configuring the request approval email sent by this process definition

   By default, CA Service Catalog sends the request approval email automatically to approvers as soon as a user submits a request for approval. When you enable PDA approval, approvers on both office computers (laptops and desktops) and on PDAs receive nearly the same version of the email.

   You can optionally customize the content of this email at any time, whether you are using PDA approval or not. If you are using PDA approval, you can optionally review, modify, and test this email in actual requests to help ensure that it is user friendly on all devices, including PDAs.

9. Optionally customize the request email profile file, to control the level of detail displayed in the request snapshot.

   The request snapshot is an optional summary of the details of the request that appears at the bottom of your request approval email. If you do not want to include the request snapshot or if you do not want to customize it, you can skip this step. The request snapshot applies to both CA IT PAM approval and CA Workflow approval.

10. Log in to CA Service Catalog from an office computer and change your default password, if you have not already done so. The default password is supplied either at installation time or when an administrator created or imported your user ID.

    This step is a prerequisite for all users who plan to approve and reject requests from a PDA.

11. Review how to approve and reject requests from a PDA; share this information with the users to whom it applies.