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=head1 RT Approvals
Some types of change requests processed through RT can
require an approval before being fulfilled. You can configure
RT to set up such an approval workflow for tickets in
queues you select.
This document walks through the steps to set up a
"Change requests" queue with approvals. You should try
this in a test instance first. If you don't have a test RT
instance, you should read through the entire document first,
change the details as needed for your approval scenario, and then
set up approvals.
=head2 Overview
The approvals solution in RT involves using a special queue,
called ___Approvals, to hold approval requests. Scrips and
templates automatically create the necessary tickets
and process the approval or rejection.
=head2 Change Management Queue
Since this example will use a change management queue as the
queue where tickets need approval, first we'll set up the queue.
Login into UI as the 'root' user. Go to Admin -> Queues and create a new
'Change requests' queue.
When you set up this queue, do not select the "approvals" Lifecycle.
That selection is for the ___Approvals queue itself, not for queues that
need tickets approved.
=head3 Change Management Template
Once the Change Management queue is created, select Templates
-> Create in the queue configuration menu. Enter the Name 'create approval',
leave the default Type as Perl and in the content area enter the following:
===Create-Ticket: Manager approval
Subject: Manager Approval for {$Tickets{TOP}->Id} - {$Tickets{TOP}->Subject}
Depended-On-By: TOP
Queue: ___Approvals
Owner: root
Requestors: {$Tickets{TOP}->RequestorAddresses}
Type: approval
Content-Type: text/plain
Due: {time + 3*24*60*60}
Content: Please approve me.
Thanks.
ENDOFCONTENT
All of the text should be against the left side of the textarea
with no spaces.
Click create.
You'll now use this template when you create the scrip.
=head3 Change Management Scrip
Now you need a scrip. On the queue configuration page, select
Scrips -> Create. For the Description, enter 'Create an approval
on ticket create', select the 'On Create' condition, 'Create Tickets'
action, and select the template you just created. Click create.
=head3 Testing
You can already test your first workflow with approvals. Create
a ticket in your new 'Change requests' queue. You're logged in as
'root' and the owner of the approval is root (based on the template),
so it's your job to approve or deny the request. Select Tools -> Approvals
in the RT main menu. You should see your first approval request.
Select the 'Deny' radio button, write 'too expensive' in the notes area
and click Go! You just rejected the approval request. If you open the ticket
you created for testing then you will see that it's rejected
as well and has the correspondence:
Greetings,
Your ticket has been rejected by root.
Approver's notes: too expensive
You may need to search for the ticket since the rejected state means
it's no longer 'active'.
Where did this message come from? From templates in the ___Approvals
queue.
=head2 ___Approvals queue
___Approvals is a special queue where all approvals are created. The queue
is disabled and is not shown in until you search for it.
Go to Admin -> Queues, leave "Name is" in the search
area and enter ___Approvals into the search
field. Check 'Include disabled queues in listing.' and click Go!
You should now see the ___Approvals queue configuration page.
You may want to change the name of the ___Approvals queue, but parts of RT
expect it not to change. The name normally isn't shown to users, however, so
it will be largely invisible.
=head2 Approvals' templates
From the ___Approvals queue configuration page, click 'Templates' in the
page menu. You should see templates that are used after actions
on approvals. For example if you click on the 'Approval Rejected'
template in the list, you will see the template that generates
the correspondence mentioned above.
=over 4
=item * New Pending Approval
Owners of new approval requests get this message.
=item * Approval Passed
Recorded as correspondence on the ticket when it's approved by an
approver, but still requires more people to approve.
=item * All Approvals Passed
Recorded when no more approvals are required.
=item * Approval Rejected
Recorded when the approval request is rejected (denied).
=item * Approval Ready for Owner
Sent to the Owner of the ticket when it's approved and no more approvals
are required.
=back
You can customize these templates to meet your needs. However,
note that there is just one ___Approvals queue for the system,
so make sure changes work with all queues that use approvals.
=head2 Approvers
Navigate back to the template used to create approvals. It has
the following line:
Owner: root
With this code you set the owner of the approval request to root.
Approvals, as well as tickets, have Ccs, AdminCcs and Requestors. For
example the following line copies requestors from the Tickets
to the approval request:
Requestors: {$Tickets{TOP}->RequestorAddresses}
Let's create a group 'Change Approvers' and let any user of
this group approve 'Change Requests'. Create the group, and add root
as a member. Open the 'create an approval' template, and replace
the 'Owner:...' line with the following:
AdminCcGroup: Change Approvers
Note that this line only works in RT 4.0.5 and newer.
Create another test ticket, and you as root still should be able to see
the newly created approval, but now because of the group membership.
You can accept or deny it.
Any member of the group can accept/deny without consulting
the other members, which is useful with more complex
multistep workflows.
=head2 Approvers' Rights
Since the ___Approvals queue is a regular RT queue, you need
to grant rights to allow your approvers to operate on approval
requests. As root, you have super user rights and haven't needed
specific rights for this example.
It's wise to grant rights via roles as there
is only one queue for all approvals in the system.
To grant rights to your Change Approvers group, go to the queue
configuration page for the ___Approvals queue. Click on Group Rights
in the page menu. Grant ShowTicket and ModifyTicket rights to the
Owner and AdminCc roles. This should be enough for most cases.
Now members of the 'Change Approvers' group can act on approvals
even if they have no SuperUser rights.
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