Using CA Service Catalog for Administrators › PDA Approval › Direct Email Approval › Meet the Prerequisites

Meet the Prerequisites

Meeting these prerequisites is required to set up and use direct email approval.

Meet the prerequisites

1. Verify that your email server meets these prerequisite:
   • Your email server must support the IMAP protocol. CA Service Catalog provides a sample CA Process Automation approval process for using IMAP for direct email approval. This sample approval process requires that you set up an email account to which user's replies to requests pending action for approval are sent.

     See your CA Process Automation documentation for the IMAP configuration settings that you must use.

   • Your email server must be capable of efficiently processing the additional email volume generated by your using direct email approval.
   • Your email server must have the email account used by direct email approval; create an account, if necessary.
2. If you use CA Workflow for approving CA Service Catalog requests, and you are want to enable direct email approval, you must install CA Process Automation. Direct email approval requires CA Process Automation to function correctly.
3. Configure CA Process Automation to support the IMAP configuration. This configuration is set in the Mail Trigger Properties of the Configuration Browser in the CA Process Automation client. In these properties, do the following:
   • In the Default process handler field, enter the following literal value: /CA SLCM/EmailApproval.
   • In the User Name field, enter the email account (for example, the address of the account) used by direct email approval (created earlier in this topic)

     Record this value for use in a later step.

   For information about installing and configuring CA Process Automation, see your CA Process Automation documentation. The CA Process Automation installation media and documentation are supplied with the CA Service Catalog installation media.

4. Load all CA Process Automation content, if you have not already done so.

   Note: For details about loading this content, see the Integration Guide.

   Loading this content makes all processes active.

5. If you are using the Notify Approver - Email based approval action (or a custom version of it) for approving requests, set your send address in only one of the following; otherwise, skip this step.

   Set this address to be the same as the one specified for the User Name field of Mail Trigger Properties for CA Process Automation; you recorded this value in an earlier step.

   • If you want your request notification email address to be the same as your email approval address, click Catalog, Configuration, Options, Request Management Configuration, and check the value of the parameters named Request Email: From Address.
   • If you want your request notification email address to be different from your email approval address, Click Administration, Tools, Events-Rules-Actions, open the Request Pending Action Change event, and open its When Status is Pending Approval rule.

     Verify that both the rule and its Notify Approver - Email based approval action are active.

     In the action, the From Email specifies the email sending address.

6. If you are using the USM_Approval process definition (or a custom version of it) for approving requests, set your send address in that process definition; otherwise, skip this step.

   Note: For details about USM_Approval and other predefined process definitions, see the CA Workflow chapter of the Integration Guide. For details about creating and customizing process definitions, see the CA Workflow IDE online help.

7. Verify that the Catalog system is not sending duplicate email notifications by submitting, approving, fulfilling, and completing requests.
8. Verify that all approvers in the Catalog system have a valid email address specified in their user profiles. If necessary, edit the user to add the email address.