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

How to Set Up Direct Email Approval

Important! This topic and its linked topics apply only if you use direct email approval (not logged in approval) as your method of PDA approval! If you use logged in approval, this topic and its linked topics do not apply.

To set up direct email approval, follow this process:

1. Review the comparison direct email approval and logged in approval and verify that you want to use direct email approval.
2. Meet the prerequisites.
3. Do one of the following, whichever applies to your implementation:
   • Customize the request approval email sent by the notify approver action to support direct email approval
   • Customize the request approval email sent by the USM_Approval Process Definition to support direct email approval
4. Test the implementation to verify that the approvals and rejections are received and processed by the Catalog system as expected:
   1. Verify that requests approved using direct email approval move to the Approved status of the request life cycle, by default 800.
   2. Verify that requests rejected using direct email approval move to the Rejected status of the request life cycle, by default 600.
   3. If you have enabled approval by individual services and service options, verify that the approval and rejection actions occur as configured and as expected.
5. Instruct all approvers to take special care not to manually forward, auto-forward, or auto-delegate request approval emails to unauthorized users. This precaution applies especially to company officers who go on vacation and configure their email program to set up email delegates or to auto-forward their emails. Otherwise, unauthorized users may be able to view request details, which may be confidential. If you are unable to configure your email software this way, consider disabling direct email approval temporarily while you work to resolve any related issues.

   When you use direct email approval, the Catalog system maintain security as follows: If the email recipient forwards the email, the direct approval links do not work for any user who receives the forwarded email, unless that user also has both a valid email address specified in its user profile and a role in CA Service Catalog authorized to approve or reject that request, service, or service option.