Using Policies to Manage Requests › Comparison to Other Approval Processes

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Comparison to Other Approval Processes

CA Service Catalog offers the following options for the approval process you use to approve, reject, and fulfill requests for services or service options. When a user submits a request, approvers must approve or reject each service in the request. A catalog service uses one of the following approval processes:

No Approval

When a request containing the service is submitted, the status is changed to Approval Done.

System Approval Process

The system approval process uses a combination of the following to determine the approver and the number of approval levels:

When a request containing the service is submitted and the Requested For value is a user, not an account, the Catalog system does the following:

  1. Finds the Requested For authorization level of the user in the user profile.
  2. Compares it with the approval level of the service.

If the authorization level of the user matches or exceeds the approval level specified by the service, then no further approval is needed. The system moves the request to the next status, typically Pending Fulfillment or Completed.

Otherwise, then the system determines an approver, as follows:

After the manager or other approver approves the service, the system uses similar logic to determine whether another level of approval is required. If yes, then the system routes the request to a request manager whose authorization level matches or exceeds the approval level of the service.

Workflow Driven Approval Process

The workflow driven approval process uses either a CA Process Automation process or a CA Workflow process definition to determine the approval process. This option provides the most flexibility. The business logic to determine the approver and the number of approval levels is specified in a customizable process or process definition. CA Service Catalog provides sample processes and process definitions, including default ones for a single level of manager approval.

Policy driven approval

If you are using CA Process Automation to approve and fulfill requests, you can use policy driven approval. In policy driven approval, you specify conditions in policies, based on the attributes of service options, services, requested items, users, and so forth. If a policy is active and a submitted request meets the condition in the policy, then the following occurs: The users (assignees) named in the policy receive a request pending action to approve, reject, or fulfill a service option, service, or request.

Policy driven approval and system approval use a few common terms. For example, in both methods, the level of approval refers to the authority of an approver in numeric terms: the higher the number, the greater the authority of the approver. However, in policy driven approval, the administrator assigns each approver and authority level uniquely, with no relation to system approval.

If a policy does not apply to a request, the Catalog system uses the approval flow defined in the workflow driven approval process. For example, suppose you are using the predefined workflow approval process and no predefined sample policy applies to a request pending action. In that case, the Catalog system assigns request pending action to the manager of the Requested For user. If the user has no manager, then the system assigns the request pending action to the Default User for Request Actions This user is specified in the Service Builder Configuration.

Note: CA Workflow does not support policy driven approval.