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Approvals

Get requests signed off by a person, a role or the requester's manager by email, and work through your approval queue.

Approvals

Some requests should not be worked until someone signs them off: a new laptop, access to a system, a change to production. Approvals put one or more sign-off steps on a ticket. The approver can be a workspace member, anyone holding a role, or a requester's manager deciding from an emailed link without an account.

Before you start

  • Approvals are available on plans that include Change Approval Board.
  • To decide approvals, a member needs approval rights. Owners, Admins and members with the Approver role have them; Auditors can see approvals but not decide them.
  • Setting up approvals on the service catalog takes permission to manage the service catalog.

How approval steps work

  • An approval request is a list of steps that run in order. Only the earliest pending step can be decided.
  • Each step has one approver: a person, a role, or a requester's manager by email.
  • For a role step, any one member who holds the role can decide it, and that decision settles the step.
  • A rejection at any step ends the whole request as rejected. Approving the last step approves it.
  • When the request finishes, the member who raised the ticket gets a notification. Approving or rejecting does not change the ticket's status on its own.
  • Deleting the ticket cancels a pending approval.

Service catalog approvals

Each request type in the service catalog can require sign-off. Open Administration → Service catalog and edit a request type.

  1. Turn on Requires approval.
  2. Choose Person or Role, then pick the approver. A person must already be able to approve, for example by holding the Approver role.
  3. Optionally turn on The customer's manager approves first (your workspace's words for requester and manager appear here).
  4. Save. Catalog cards for that type show Needs approval.

When a service request is raised from that type, the approval starts by itself: the manager step first (if turned on), then the request type's approver.

Requires approval does not lock the ticket — agents can still change it while the approval is pending, so agree as a team to wait. Approvals need a plan that includes Change Approval Board; without it the options are disabled in the service catalog editor, with a note saying so.

Manager approval by emailed link

The manager is read from the requester's record: edit the requester and set Manager (approves their requests when a service asks). The manager is another requester with an email address. It can also be filled in by SCIM provisioning.

  • If the manager's email belongs to a workspace member, the step goes to that member's Approvals queue instead of email.
  • Otherwise the manager gets an email with Review request, Approve and Reject buttons. The buttons only open the page with that choice ready; the manager confirms with one more click, so a mail scanner opening the link cannot decide it.
  • On the page the manager sees the ticket key, the service and description, an optional comment box, and Approve or Reject. No account is needed, and the link works only for that one request.
  • If no usable manager is on record, the step goes to the request type's approver, or to your admins if it has none.
The email is only sent if your workspace has a way to send mail: its own email channel, its own SMTP server, or the built-in email provider (available on plans that include Built-in Email Provider).

Reminders and escalation for managers

Open Administration → CAB approval chains and find the card When a manager doesn't answer.

  • Remind them: never, or after 1 day, 2 days (the default), 3 days or 1 week. Reminders repeat at that interval. Each reminder carries a fresh link and the earlier link stops working.
  • Pass it to the approver: never, or after 3 days, 5 days (the default), 1 week or 2 weeks, counted from the first email. The step then also opens to the request type's approver, or your admins if it has none, and they get a notification. The manager can still decide, and reminders stop.

These timings apply only to managers approving by email, not to members.

Ask for approval by hand

On a service request, the Approval section offers Request multi-level approval. Pick a person with Select approver…, add more with + Add approver (each person is one step, in order), then choose Submit for approval. A ticket can have only one pending approval at a time.

The same section shows the approval's status, who asked for it, and each step with its approver, status, decision and comment. When it is your turn, Approve and Reject appear there.

Change approvals (CAB)

Change requests go through approval chains set per change type in Administration → CAB approval chains. A standard or normal change cannot be closed without an approved CAB request; emergency changes are exempt. See CAB approval chains.

The Approvals page

Choose Approvals in the sidebar (under Change). It has two tabs.

  • Queue lists the steps waiting on you now, by name, by role, or because someone delegated to you, oldest first. Search by key, title or requester, or filter by request type. Each row has an optional comment box with Approve and Reject. Select several rows to use Approve selected or Reject selected (up to 100 at a time). Members who can read approval chains also get an All view of everything pending in the workspace.
  • Delegation lets you hand your approvals to someone else while you are away. Under Delegate my approvals, choose Delegate to, From, Until and an optional reason. The person must be able to approve, and their decisions are recorded against your authority. You can revoke a delegation at any time.

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