Configuring Approval Process

Configuring Intellicus for Approval Process includes:

• Configuring Application. In this process, you enable the feature and specify states in the approval process.

• Configuring User Preferences. In this process, you can choose whether to receive approval process related emails or not.  Also as a super administrator, you can customize text that will be sent as the email.

• Configuring Reports. Here, you associate approval process with a report as well as select users for the role of approvers and commenters.

Configuring Application

In order to configure the application for Approval Process, you need to do the following:

• Enable the feature (on Server page)

• Specify states in approval process (on Approval Process page)

Activating (enabling) Approval Process

To open the Server page, click Navigate > Administration > Configure > Server.

On Server page, navigate to ‘Published Report Approval Required’ property under Compliance.  Select “Enable” to set the report publishing approval process.

Figure 1: Setting the property value to enable on Server page

Click the Save button after enabling the property.

Naming the Approval Process States

To open the Approval Process page, click Navigate > Administration > Secure Data > Approval Process.

You can specify the below on the Approval Process page:

• Name: Give a name to the approval process.

• Pending: This state indicates that the report is yet to be approved or rejected.

• Rejected: This state indicates that the report is rejected. A rejected report is not publicly published.

• Approved: This state indicates that the report is approved. An approved report is publicly published.

Figure 2: Approval Process

In Name entry box, specify approval process name.

Specify caption that should be displayed on Add Comment dialog box for Pending, Rejected and Approved actions.

Note: In this document we have considered Pending, Rejected and Approved as the captions.

Buttons on the page

• Save: To save the changes.

• Cancel: To abandon the changes.

• Delete: To delete the workflow.

Configuring User Preferences

E-mail message

With reference to Approval Process, application can mail you (you are an approver or a commenter) when:

• A report is published and is pending for approval

• A report is pending for approval and someone has commented it

• A report is pending for approval is approved or rejected

You can customize the text used in these mails by changing the content of following files respectively.

• ReportApprovalProcessReportPublishMessage.txt

• ReportApprovalProcessCommentAddMessage.txt

• ReportApprovalProcessStatusUpdationMessage.txt

Figure 3: Approval Process related message files

These files are placed on machine where the report server is running at the below path:

<intellicus_installation_folder>/Intellicus/reportengine/config/messages/mails

E-mail Preferences

Application users can set their e-mail preferences on User Preferences tab under Personalization > Preferences page.

Figure 4: Setting e-mail preferences to receive approval and status alerts

To receive approval process related mail, select Approval Process checkbox under Send Email group.  Make sure you have provided the email ID.

Click Save button after making the changes.

Report Access Rights for users

Following table lists the access rights that particular user should have to work with report approvals:

Note: Whether a user can approve a report or comment a report is set for each report during deployment.

Configuring Reports

When a report that has to undergo approval process before it is published, you need to associate it with approval process at the time of report deployment.

Note: This can be done even after the report is deployed.

This process is done on Manage Folders and Reports page.  To open this page, click Navigate > Repository > Manage Categories and Reports.

On this page, navigate to the Folder where the report to associate with Approval Process is deployed and select the report.

To associate with approval process

Figure 5: Approval Process properties on Manage Folders and Reports page

To specify approval process, select name from Process Name drop-down box.

You need to select users who will act as Approver / Commenter.  Click Assign Users button to get Approval Process Access Rights dialog box.

On Approval Process Access Rights dialog box,

Figure 6: Giving approval process rights

A user who is given Approver rights is automatically given Commenter rights.

After making the changes, click Set to save the changes.

Note: Changes will be saved at the time of saving the page.  So, don’t forget to click Save button on the page after making the changes.

To detach approval process

When you try detaching approval process from a report, it is quite possible that the report has been published and is yet to be approved or rejected.  Before detaching approval process from the report you need to decide what you want to do with such pending reports.

Click Detach button to get the below dialog.

Figure 7: Detaching approval process

On this dialog, select Approve or Reject based on the need.  Click OK to proceed.