Approvals

Who approves a change is decided by an approval policy: a set of conditions and one or more stages of approvers. Every decision is kept with what was approved, by whom, and who could have approved it that day.

Send for approval → Version saved → Policy picks the stages → Each stage approves → Scheduled
Any stage → Rejected: an approver rejects, with a comment

What gets approved

Send for approval saves what the change is as a numbered version, and approvals are given on that version.

You edit	What happens
The plans, the window, the services, the risk or the customers	A new version; the approvers are asked again.
The title, notes, tasks or links	Nothing: the approvals stand.

Approval policies

Policies live under Settings → Change Management. The first policy that matches the change decides who approves.

When a policy applies

Applies when lists conditions. Every one must hold; a condition with several values matches any of them. A policy with no conditions matches every change.

Condition	Matches on
Type	Normal or emergency (standard changes are approved in advance).
Risk	The change's risk.
Service tier	The tier of the service it changes.
Service	The service itself.
Service's unit	The service's unit, or any unit under it.
Category	The change's category.
Account label or property	A label or data property of an affected account, like a contract type.
Account without approvers	An affected account that has no change approvers of its own.

Stages

A policy has stages, run in order. Each stage asks one kind of approver, and needs any one, all, or a number of them (“2 of the CAB”):

A stage asks	Who decides
A person	That person.
A team	Its members.
A role	Anyone holding it.
The service's owner	The owner of the service the change is on.
The customers affected	Each affected account's approvers, on their portal (below).
The CAB, in a meeting	The chair, at the next CAB meeting.

Add stage adds a CAB stage, which you can then change.

A stage can also apply only when its own conditions hold, such as a platform team's stage only when a service is in the platform unit. When they don't hold, the stage is left out and the change's timeline says so.

[!NOTE] A change waiting for a CAB stage goes on the agenda of the next CAB meeting. The chair's decision there is the stage's approval or rejection.

When no policy matches

Change	Who approves
Normal	The service's owner, then the customers affected.
Emergency	One Change Manager, or the service's owner.

Accounts without approvers of their own

In a stage that asks the customers, each affected account with change approvers approves for itself. For an account with none, the stage's rules decide:

1. The first rule that fits the account wins. A rule fits any account, named accounts, a label or a property value.
2. It names a person, a team or a role who approves for the account, such as “enterprise accounts: the support team”.
3. Their decision shows as “Team Pulseboard support, for Brightpath Logistics”, and needs the change approval permission like any other.

An account no rule fits isn't asked. It still gets the notice when the change is scheduled, and the timeline lists it as “not asked”.

Approving or rejecting

1. Approvers get an email that links to the change (never a button in the email itself).
2. While they haven't answered, they get a reminder once a day.
3. On the change, they choose Approve or Reject. Rejecting needs a comment.

[!TIP] Every change waiting for your approval is on Approvals in the sidebar, near the top, with its count. Its second tab lists your own changes waiting for others, and which stage they are at. See Approvals.

Each decision keeps:

Kept	Why
Who and when	The decision itself.
The version, by its fingerprint	What exactly was approved.
The IP address and browser	Where it was decided from.
Approvers then	Who could decide it at that moment (below).

Approvers then

Under each decision, the change page shows who was on the approver list that day, even after the list has changed:

The stage asked	Approvers then
A person	That person.
A team	Its members.
A role	The people holding it.
The service's owner	The owner.
The customers	The account's approvers.
The CAB	The chair and the attendees of the meeting.

[!TIP] This is what an auditor checks: that the person who approved was entitled to, on that day.

Rules that always apply

Rule	What it means
Separation of duties	Whoever asked for a change can't approve it, and whoever carries it out can't be its only approver. Both are on by default; turning one off is kept in the control history.
Away?	Name a stand-in for a period; their approvals say “on behalf of”.
Customers who don't answer	A Change Manager can proceed without them, with a reason. That is recorded as an exception. See customers.
The window passes	If the planned start comes before every approval, the change goes back to its owner to plan a new window.