Use external approvals (EX approval procedure) if a request needs to be approved once a defined event from outside One Identity Manager takes place. You can also use this procedure to allow users with no access to One Identity Manager to approve requests.

Specify an event in the approval step that triggers an external approval. The event triggers a process that initiates the external approval for the request and evaluates the result of the approval decision. The approval process waits for the external decision to be passed to One Identity Manager. Define the subsequent approval steps depending on the result of the external approval.

To use an approval procedure

1. In the Designer, define your own processes that:

   • Triggers an external approval.

   • Analyzes the results of the external approval.

   • Grants or denies approval in the subsequent external approval step in One Identity Manager.

2. Defines an event that starts the process for external approval. Enter the result in Result in the approval step.

If the external event occurs, the approval step status in One Identity Manager must be changed. Use the CallMethod process task with the MakeDecision method for this. Pass the following parameters to the process task:

Use these parameters to specify which request is to be approved by external approval (WhereClause). Param1 specifies the approver. The approver is always the sa system user. Param2 passes down the approval decision. If the request was granted, a value of True must be returned. If the request was denied, a value of False must be returned. Use Param3 to pass a reason text for the approval decision; use Param4 to pass a predefined standard reason. If more than one external approval steps have been defined in an approval level, use Param5 to pass the approval step count. This ensures the approval is aligned with the correct approval step.

Example

All approved requests should be entered into an external ticketing system and started. If a request is completed in an external ticketing system, it must also be completed in One Identity Manager. Use this approval procedure to make external approvals and define:

• A P1 process that creates a ticket with the information about the requested product in the external system and passes the ticket number to One Identity Manager in the request instance.
• An E1 event that starts the P1 event.
• A P2 process that checks whether the ticket status is "closed" and calls the CallMethod process task with the MakeDecision method in One Identity Manager.
• An E2 event that starts the P2 process.
• A schedule that starts the E2 event on a regular basis.

Enter E1 in the Event box as the trigger for the external decision.

Pass the product and customer data that the product is being requested for in the P1 process to the external ticket system. In another parameter, pass the ticket number from the external ticketing system to One Identity Manager.

Use the ticket number to check the ticket status in P2 process. If the ticket is closed, call the MakeDecision method and pass the ticket status from the external system to One Identity Manager in a parameter (Param2). In another parameter, specify the system user that changes the approval step status in One Identity Manager (Param1). Pass sa as the value for this parameter. Pass the reason for the approval decision in Param3.

For more information about defining processes, see One Identity Manager Configuration Guide.

Detailed information about this topic

• Properties of an approval step