Service Manager

Approving a Milestone

When the status of a major release is updated to active, the approval workflow starts. After the approvers approve the first milestone in the sequence after the milestone status is updated to complete, the next milestone in the sequence starts. After all the milestones defined for a release are approved, the release status is updated to closed.

Depending on how the workflow is configured for the different major releases (by the different combinations of scope and phase), a milestone can be approved by a user or a group. When a group is configured to approve the milestone, the milestone is approved if all the approvers approve it or if only 51% of them do.

By default, emergency and minor release types are not part of the approval process.

If you are set up as an approver for a release milestone, you are notified when the status for the default task for the article belonging to that specific collection is updated to pending approval. See Approving Releases for information about the release approval process.

Approval through Email

You can accept or reject a milestone by responding to it directly from the email that Service Manager sends you. When you receive a milestone approval email request, do the following:

1.Click Reply and indicate your acceptance or rejection of the article by entering approved or denied in the body of the message. Do not modify the subject line of the email when sending your response through email.

2.If you reject an article, enter the reason for rejecting it in the second line of the body of the message. The approval keywords are configured in the FRS Approval Status Keyword tab records in the email configuration form. By default, the keywords to approve or reject via email are approved or denied.

3.Click Send.

The milestone record status is not updated until all of the approvers identified for the specific milestone have responded, unless the approval workflow is configured as such that you are the only approver. By default, a release milestone is not approved all the approvers approve it.

The Approval Vote Tracking record for the approval instance of the milestone record is updated to show your response.

Approval using the Self-Service Portal

You can either click the link that appears in the email to go to the Self-Service Portal or log directly into the Self-Service Portal.

If you use the Self-Service Portal for approvals, you must be in the Self Service role. Contact your administrator to add the Self Service role to your employee profile if you are not able to log into the Self-Service Portal.

1.Log into the Self-Service Portal.

2.Click My Items.

3.Select Approval Request from the drop-down list.

4.Click Approval Request for Release.

5.Either approve or deny the request:

•If you approve the request, click Approve, then click Approve again to dismiss the approval confirmation message and confirm the approval.

•If you deny the request, click Deny, then enter the reason for denying the request in the Deny Approval-Reason field and click Submit.

6.Click Approve.

The milestone record status is not updated until all the approvers identified for the specific milestone have responded, unless the approval workflow is configured as such that you are the only approver. By default, a release milestone is not approved all the approvers approve it.

The system updates the Approval Vote Tracking record for the approval instance of the milestone record to show your response.