Create Approval Workflows for Service Requests

You can create approval workflows that will allow administrators to either reject or provide consent for new service requests made by users.

When you create approval workflows for new service requests, you can also configure the workflows so that any required pre-deployment activity that must occur before provisioning the approved services is also performed.

1. Click the Approval tab.
2. Click Add.

   You can also select an existing workflow and click Copy. This can save time because it copies the selected workflow's configuration.

3. On the Name & Type page, provide a name for the workflow, and the Apply this workflow menu, select When a new request is created. Then click Next.
4. On the Assignment page, specify who should have access to this workflow:
   • Make this the Global workflow: This workflow will serve as the default. That is, it will be available to all users who don't have a workflow assigned specifically for them.

     There can be only be one default approval workflow for new service requests. All new approval workflows for new service requests except for the default must be assigned to specific organizations, users, or groups.

   • Allow these specific organizations, users and groups to access this workflow: The workflow is assigned to specific organizations or users.
     • To add an organization, click the Organizations tab, select an available organization, and click Add. Repeat for each organization that you want to add.
     • To add users, click Users/Groups, enter a valid user name (either a local user, such as Manager, or a directory service user name, such as <username@domain>) and click Add. Repeat for each user that you want to add.
5. Click Next after you've finished making your assignments.
6. On the Steps page, click Add and select a step to include in the workflow, and then set its configuration parameters in the step details section. Continue to add steps to the workflow module, as appropriate.

    

   • By default, steps execute automatically. However, you can set steps to execute only for specific conditions. To make a step conditional, from the Step Execution drop-down list, select Execute when conditions are met, then click Edit and define the condition. See Make Workflow Steps Conditional for more details.
   • To change the order of a step, use the up and down arrows, or click Delete to remove it.
7. Optional: By default, if a step fails when a workflow is run, no re-attempt is made. If you want the workflow to re-attempt to execute a step if it fails, select an added step from the Step Order section, then click Add > Retry Selected Step. For more information, see Add Retry Steps to Workflows.
8. Click Next after you've finished adding steps.
9. On the Automation Options page, specify how approved requests will be deployed.
• To allow administrators to manually deploy requests, select Manually deploy approved requests.
• To deploy VMs and virtual services automatically once the service request has received approval, select Automatically deploy approved requests.
  • To enable automated deployment, you must also configure a deployment destination on the target cloud account. See Configure Automated Deployment for Approved Service Requests.
  • vCenter only: If you selected Automatically deploy approved requests and you want the primary owner to be set as the administrator of the VM during the automated deployment process, enable Set primary owner as administrator.

    If you select this option, any Windows VM that's configured with a customization specification in this workflow will automatically assign the primary owner to the local Administrator group.

  Important: The VM customization process may proceed for some time after the VM is created. If anyone logs into the VM and interrupts the customization process, the primary owner won't be added as administrator. To ensure that the service requester isn't prematurely notified that the VM is ready for use, add a Wait For Event step to your completion workflow. From the Wait For menu, select Guest OS customization to complete, and in the Wait Time field, enter 1800 seconds.

10. On the Summary page, enter a comment about the workflow in the Description of Changes field, review your settings and click Finish.

    For the description of changes, you can indicate the purpose of a new workflow or, if you are editing an existing workflow, indicate what changes were made.