Create Phases

To create a phase:

1. Select Administration | Project, then select Change Management from the Automated Workflow section of the main frame.
2. Click Add Phase.  The Configure Approval Phase page is displayed.
3. In Step 1, give the Phase a name and, optionally, a description.

4. The Copy From Another Phase field allows you to copy all of the phase information from an existing phase. If you want to copy phase data, click the arrow to display all of the phases and the processes with which they are associated and then select the phase you want to copy from the drop-down. You can edit the choices for the copied phase according to the following instructions.

5. In Step 2, select the approvers. There are several options for selecting approvers and you can select any combination of these options.
6. User List—Highlight an individual user or users in the User List on the left and then use the arrow button to move them to the Eligible Voters list on the right (or highlight Eligible Voters and use the arrow button to remove them from the list).
7. Team List—Highlight a team or teams in the Team List on the left and then use the arrow button to move them to the Eligible Voters list on the right (or highlight Eligible Voters and use the arrow button to remove the team from the list).
8. Select Eligible Voters From Issue Characteristics—Check the boxes to select eligible voters based on the Issue characteristics. Options are:
9. Individual Assignees—Designates the Issue assignees as approvers for this Issue and phase only.
10. Team Members of Assigned Team (if Team assigned)—Designates the members of an assigned Team as approvers for this Issue and phase only.
11. Team Leader (if Team assigned)—Designates the Team Leader of an assigned as an approver for this Issue and phase only.
12. Submitter's Supervisor —Designates the Issue submitter's supervisor as an assigned approver for this Issue and phase only.
13. Assignees' Supervisor— Designates the Issue assignee's supervisor as an assigned approver for this Issue and phase only.
14. Submitter— Designates the Issue submitter as an assigned approver for this Issue and phase only.
15. Select an approver who will only vote if...—Select a fallback voter in case none of the selected eligible voters (e.g., Assignees’ Supervisor) can vote on the Issue. A selection is only required when nobody is set to be an eligible voter and one of the selection boxes is selected in the 'Select Eligible Voters from User List'.

6. Select the way approval votes are handled using the checkboxes.
7. Phase approval when All eligible voters approve.  Phase Disapproval when One eligible voter disapproves—All voters must unanimously approve the Issue in order for the Issue to be considered approved.  This means that if there is just one vote against approval, the Issue is rejected.  It also means that as soon as one disapproval is submitted, voting is closed regardless of whether all approvers have voted.
8. Phase approval when At least X% of eligible voters approve. Phase Disapproval when More than X% of eligible voters disapprove—Approval is given when X% voters approve.  For example, if this is set to 33% and there are nine eligible approvers, when three of them approve then the Issue is approved.  When the approval percentage is selected, the disapproval percentage is calculated for you automatically.  Approval or disapproval do not always wait for all of the votes to be submitted; as soon as the approval or disapproval threshold is reached,  the voting is closed.
9. Phase approval when More than X% of eligible voters approve.  Phase Disapproval when At least X% of eligible voters disapprove— Approval is given when more than X% voters approve.  For example, if this is set to 33% and there are nine eligible approvers, when four of them approve then the Issue is approved.  When the approval percentage is selected, the disapproval percentage is calculated for you automatically.  Approval or disapproval do not always wait for all of the votes to be submitted; as soon as the approval or disapproval threshold is reached,  the voting is closed.
10. Phase approval when One eligible voter approves.  Phase Disapproval when All eligible voters disapprove—The Issue is approved when one of the eligible voters approves.  The Issue is only disapproved if disapproval is unanimous.  Voting closes as soon as one of these states is reached.
11. First tally to reach X% of eligible voters—The Issue is approved or disapproved based on which set of voters achieves the specified percentage of voters first.  For example, if 33% is specified and there are nine approvers, then the first vote count to reach three votes first decides the Issue.
12. Deadline for approval/disapproval checkbox—Check the box and enter the amount of time to set a deadline to approve/disapprove.  If a clear approval or disapproval vote is not reached when the timer runs out, the decision is made according to what is specified in the drop-down field.  The number of days refers to real days, not Project Schedule days.  Drop-down options are:  Approve (the Issue is approved when the timer runs out); Disapprove (the Issue is rejected when the timer runs out); Highest Tally-Tie: Approve (whichever set of votes is higher wins, but in the case of a tie the Issue is approved when the timer runs out); Highest Tally-Tie: Disapprove (whichever set of votes is higher wins, but in the case of a tie the Issue is disapproved when the timer runs out).

7. Step 3: General Options deals mainly with email notifications for approvers, but provides some other options as well.
8. Phase Start Email Notification—Notify approvers that a phase requiring their approval has begun.
9. Email Title—Enter the title you want to include at the top of each email notification.  With respect to %%Variable%% expressions, some field data from the Issue can also be used in the field headers, as follows:
10. Issue Number—%%MRID%%
11. Title—%%TITLE%%
12. Priority—%%PRIORITY%%
13. Status—%%STATUS%%
14. Submitter—%%SUBMITTER%%
15. Project ID—%%PROJID%%
16. Project and Address Book fields—%%FIELD NAME%% where "FIELD NAME" is the name of the field in upper case.
17. Voting by email—Include the %%BALLOT%% variable to include a ballot with the notification.  It is a better idea, however, to include the ballot in the body of the email than in the header.  The ballot can be completed and returned by the approver to cast the vote.

Click the [Insert Variable] link to display a list of valid variables.  Double-click a variable or click it once and then click the Insert button to append the variable to the title.  Click the [Preview] link to view a preview of the email you have built.

• Email Body— Check the box for Text or HTML to determine the format to be used for outgoing Change Management email.  If you select HTML, you can use standard HTML tags to format the email, but the variables remain the same as always.  Once you select the type of email body to use, click on either [Email Body:  Text] or [Email Body:  HTML] to access the message body and edit it.  Enter the content you want included in the body of the email.   With respect to %%Variable%% expressions, field data from the Issue can also be used in the email body, as follows:
• Issue Number—%%MRID%%
• Title—%%TITLE%%
• Priority—%%PRIORITY%%
• Status—%%STATUS%%
• Submitter—%%SUBMITTER%%
• Project ID—%%PROJID%%
• Project and Address Book fields—%%FIELD NAME%% where "FIELD NAME" is the name of the field in upper case.
• Description—Include all description data from the Description field by using the %%DESCRIPTION%% variable. Include only the first description entered by using the %%DESCRIPTIONFIRST%% variable. Include only the most recent description by using the %%DESCRIPTIONLAST%% variable.
• Voting by email—Include the %%BALLOT%% variable to include a ballot with the notification.  It is a better idea, however, to include the ballot in the body of the email than in the header.  The ballot can be completed and returned by the approver to cast the vote.

Click the [Insert Variable] link to display a list of valid variables.  Double-click a variable or click it once and then click the Insert button to append the variable to the title.

• Include attachments for this issue—Click the checkbox to include any attachments to the Issue with the email.

• Vote Notification—You can optionally notify all eligible voters when another voter records a vote on the Issue.  Use the checkbox to determine whether to notify voters of approval, disapproval, and/or deferred votes, as well as whether or not to send a notification to the vote submitter.  The vote submitter will not receive a notification if none of the other checkboxes in this section are selected.

Email Title, Email Body, and Attachment options are the same as above under Phase Start Email Notification.

• Recurring Email Reminder—Enable email reminders, select the frequency with which email reminders are sent to approvers to remind them to vote on an Issue, and specify the content of the email.  The emails are sent until the approver's vote has been recorded or the Issue has been approved or rejected.

Email Title, Email Body, and Attachment options are the same as above under Phase Start Email Notification.

• Minutes/Hours/Days/Weeks—Select the frequency with which email reminders are sent to approvers who have not yet voted.  Selections are exclusive, meaning that you can only pick the frequency from one of the time periods.  If you select a frequency from a different time period, the previous time period is zeroed out.  In other words, if you picked "15 minutes" and then picked "3 hours", the minutes selection returns to 0.

• Anonymous Voting—By default, details of the voting results can be displayed, including who voted and how they voted.  Check this box to hide eligible voters and current vote lists from the extended voting details page. Votes are not completely anonymous to everyone because anyone with the role to run change management reports or view change management history can still view votes in those places.

8. Step 4:  Actions on Phase Approval determines what is done with an Issue once an approval has been obtained.
9. Status-Click the checkbox and then select a status from the drop-down list if you want the status to change once this phase of voting has concluded.

• Priority—Click the checkbox and then decide how you want the priority changed when phase approval is obtained as follows:

• Move the Priority X step(s) toward 10—Provides a relative number for raising the priority number.
• Move the Priority X step(s) toward 1—Provides a relative number for lowering the priority number.
• Change the priority to X—Specify a priority number to which the priority is changed when phase approval is obtained.

• Assignment
• Change assignment of Issue—Assign the Issue to another agent or agents when the approval is finalized.
• Add selected users as Assignees if they are not already assigned—Does not change the current assignees, but allows you to add additional assignees.  Use the assignee box to select the new assignees.
• Re-assign to selected users after unassigning all existing users—Unassigns all current assignees.  You then have to assign a new set of assignees.  Use the assignee box to select the new assignees.

• External Action—Click the checkbox to enable this function, which allows you to execute an external program when approval is obtained for this phase.  This feature is especially useful for running scripts.  The external program must be one that can run and stop on its own without any user intervention.  In addition, if the program involves running a graphical user interface (GUI), it may not be able to display the interface to a screen, which could cause the program to hang and fail.  Therefore, the program should also be one that can run from a command line rather than a GUI.  Enter the path to the program in the Execute external program field.  In addition, you can pass field data to the external program by using the %%Variable%% functions.  Click the [Insert Variable] link to display a list of valid variables.  Double-click a variable or click it once and then click the Insert button to append the variable to the field.

• Run instant edit-based escalation—If you check the box, if the end of a phase triggers an edit to an Issue, the Issue is checked against escalation criteria and, if it matches escalation criteria, the Issue is escalated accordingly.  If the box is not checked, which is the default, then a Change Management approval or disapproval does not trigger an escalation.
• Transfer to Phase—By default, an approval moves an Issue into the next defined phase and a disapproval ends the process. However, an action can be defined to start any selected phase on approval or disapproval. Note that a transfer into a phase which has already finished in the past clears the old votes from it and restarts the voting.  Click the checkbox and then select a phase from the drop-down to transfer the phase upon a phase approval.

• Approval Notification Email
• Email eligible voters a notification of phase verdict—Check the box to have an email notification sent to all approvers when the phase approval is made.
• Email Issue submitter a notification of phase verdict—Check the box to have an email notification sent to Issue submitter when the phase approval is made.

• Email Title—Enter the title you want to include at the top of each email notification.  With respect to %%Variable%% expressions, some field data from the Issue can also be used in the field headers, as follows:
• Issue Number—%%MRID%%
• Title—%%TITLE%%
• Priority—%%PRIORITY%%
• Status—%%STATUS%%
• Submitter—%%SUBMITTER%%
• Project ID—%%PROJID%%
• Project and Address Book fields—%%FIELD NAME%% where "FIELD NAME" is the name of the field in upper case.

Click the [Insert Variable] link to display a list of valid variables.  Double-click a variable or click it once and then click the Insert button to append the variable to the title.  Click the [Preview] link to view a preview of the email you have built.

• Email Body— Check the box for Text or HTML to determine the format to be used for outgoing Change Management email.  If you select HTML, you can use standard HTML tags to format the email, but the variables remain the same as always.  Once you select the type of email body to use, click on either [Email Body:  Text] or [Email Body:  HTML] to access the message body and edit it.  Enter the content you want included in the body of the email.   With respect to %%Variable%% expressions, field data from the Issue can also be used in the email body, as follows:
• Issue Number—%%MRID%%
• Title—%%TITLE%%
• Priority—%%PRIORITY%%
• Status—%%STATUS%%
• Submitter—%%SUBMITTER%%
• Project ID—%%PROJID%%
• Project and Address Book fields—%%FIELD NAME%% where "FIELD NAME" is the name of the field in upper case.

Click the [Insert Variable] link to display a list of valid variables.  Double-click a variable or click it once and then click the Insert button to append the variable to the title.

• Include attachments for this issue—Click the checkbox to include any attachments to the Issue with the email.

9. Step 5:  Actions on Final Disapproval determines what is done with an Issue once a disapproval has been obtained.  The options are the same as in the preceding step of this procedure.
10. Type in your password and then click the GO button to save this phase.

NOTE

If the final phase in a process does not specify at least one action to be taken upon final approval and the Issue is approved, the Issue will be re-submitted to the same Change Management process.  Likewise, if the final phase in a process does not specify at least one action to be taken upon final disapproval and the Issue is disapproved, the Issue will be re-submitted to the same Change Management process.  In other words, the Issue will loop back into the process in those instances.  To ensure that this does not happen, the final phase in a process should specify some action to be taken upon final approval and upon final disapproval.