Approval Engine

At a high level, when users request access to resources, they initiate workflows that attempt to execute one or more EmpowerID Operations against those resources in a manner consistent with the workflow. For example, if a user requests membership in a Management Role, the workflow related to that request attempts to execute operations against both the user and the Management Role to update the person’s role membership. In a default configuration of the EmpowerID approval flow engine, if a user has access to initiate a workflow but does not have access to execute one or more operations in the workflow, the authorization engine returns a message that the user does not have the required access. This mode is the default for workflows used by admins where approval is not desired. For processes requiring approval, EmpowerID offers a powerful workflow engine that can be enabled on a workflow-by-workflow level.

Workflow Approval Routing

This default approval process can be overridden to give organizations more control over how the system generates and flows approvals. Each workflow has a property called Never Send for Approval and most have that property enabled out of the box.

Open

Figure 2: Never Send for Approval property in the EmpowerID User Interface

The logic that occurs in the approval process in relation to the Never Send for Approval property on a given workflow is as follows:

• When Never Send for Approval is True (selected in the UI)
  When Never Send for Approval is set on a workflow (as shown in Figure 2), EmpowerID verifies whether the person executing the workflow has the RBAC access needed to perform the workflow’s operations. If the person has access, the workflow continues; if the person does not have access, EmpowerID notifies the person that they do not have access and the workflow exits. Approval routing never occurs. There are several benefits to removing approval routing in this way, including the following:

  • This significantly reduces the number of approval tasks generated by the system and removes actions from the approval process that should not be there in the first place.

  • The workflows and the operation base do not generate Business Process Tasks (Business Process is a workflow and all the operations in it are Business Process Tasks) when a person does not have the RBAC delegations to execute the workflow.

• When Never Send for Approval is False (not selected in the UI)
  If the setting is false, the workflow must be configured with a Business Request Type and it will always go for approval, even if the person has access to execute the workflow operations. The Business Request Type property allows workflows to be classified for the purpose of providing greater flexibility in approval routing and the grouping together of related access requests. Rather than having a default approval routing that simply routes unrelated approvals to all users with the delegations to approve requests, organizations can this property along with new Access Request and Approval Flow policies to group together related access requests into a single consolidated “approval bundle,“ specify to whom approval tasks should go, and how many approvals are needed before fulfillment occurs.

Open

Figure 3: Workflow Approval Routing based on the state of the ‘Never Send for Approval’ property on a given workflow

Approval Flow Policies

When users shop for resources in the IT Shop, they put resource items for which they are eligible to receive in their shopping carts. When ready, they submit the items in their cart to the EmpowerID system. These cart submissions are known as “Business Requests.” Each Business Request can contain one or more resource items, depending on the number of items that were in a user’s cart when submitted. The Business Request, including all the items in that request, route for approval based on the configuration of Approval Flow policies. Approval Flow policies are user-defined policies that organizations can create to direct Business Requests through an approval process that can involve multiple levels of approval from numerous designated approvers before users receive the items in a Business Request, known as “fulfillment.” Organizations can create Approval Flow policies that are as simple or as complex as their needs dictate. Approval Flow policies have a number of key components that can be configured to specify how this occurs:

• Business Request Type – As mentioned above, a Business Request Type is a workflow property used to group workflows by the type of business request they represent. An example of a Business Request Type is the IT Shop Business Request Type. This type represents anything that is published to the IT Shop, such as Application and Business Roles, Management Roles, and Azure Licenses. Approval Flow policies can be configured to specify that requests of a certain Business Request Type must go through multiple levels of approval, for example, before fulfillment occurs. Approval flow at the Business Request level is sometimes referred to as global level, versus item level, approval flow.

• Approval Flow Steps – Approval Flow Steps are added to Approval Flow policies to specify how many approvals are required for fulfillment. Approval Flow policies can have as many Approval Flow Steps as needed. Each step is a sequential step that must be approved at that level to proceed to the next step. Each step can have its own approver resolver logic, and steps can optionally be configured for “step-level” fulfillment. This means that a step can run a workflow and perform some action based on the decision made for the step. Step-level fulfillment is most often used to perform an action when the approver’s decision was one that was a rejection that stopped forward processing of the approval flow. The normal fulfillment process for an item request only executes if all steps are approved.

  • Item Level Approval – Each step can be configured to allow for Item Level approval. This setting is specific to the global or Business Request level approval and allows the approver to make decisions on each item instead of a single decision for the entire Business Request. Item Level refers to the individual items in a business request, such as requesting an Office 365 mailbox or an Application Role. With Item Level approval enabled for a Business Request level step, the step approver can elect to make item-by-item approvals. Only those items not rejected at an approval step in the Business Request level for an approved Business Request move forward for item-level approval evaluation.

  • Approver Resolver Rules – Approver Resolver rules specify to whom the Approval Flow Step needs to route for approval. These can be routed to various actors in EmpowerID, including the:

    • Initiator Manager – The approval task is sent to the manager of the user who initiated the request.

    • Target Person Manager – If the request is made on behalf of another individual, the task is routed to that person's immediate manager for approval.

    • Resource Owner – The approval task is sent to the designated owner of the specific resource being requested.

    • Global Resource Owner – This option directs the approval task to the owner of the global resource specified in the Business Request. For instance, if a user submits a request for group membership, selecting "Resource Owner" as the Approver Resolver Rule would route the approval task to the individual or entity responsible for managing that particular group.

    • RBAC Approver – The task routes to individuals who possess the necessary Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) delegations to approve the request.

    • Static Approver – Approval tasks are sent to specific users who are pre-selected for this particular Approval Flow Step.

    • Fallback Approver – This setting designates an alternative approver to act in cases where a specified approver is not available. For example, if a Management Role is set as a Static Approver but no individual currently holds that role, the Fallback Approver will receive the approval task.

  • Items Types – Item Types are the individual resources that can be requested, such as membership in an Application Role or access to an Office 365 mailbox. The Item Type is where the template for viewing an item is defined to specify which properties to show.

  • Item Type Actions – Item Type Actions are in essence EmpowerID Operations and represent actions that can occur against an item (resource). Examples of Item Type Actions include Add Account To Group or Assign Azure License. Item Type Actions are where the final fulfillment workflow is defined which knows how to complete the requested action.

Approval Flow

While there are several pieces involved with how approvals flow in EmpowerID, the logic is straightforward. Items have two opportunities to go for approval. first optionally at the Business Request or global level. Not all requests will be routed for approval at the Business Request level. Business Request Level approval is best explained as order-level approval. Business Requests contain multiple items and the Business Request Type can be configured to have a global or order level approval flow. If the Business Request is rejected at any of the steps in this approval flow the process ends. Only items approved at the Business Request Level pass on to the next step to optional go for approval flow at the item level.

Business Request Level

1. The Approval engine first looks at Business Request Type to see if the type is defined with any Approval Flow policies per Access Request policy. In other words, the engine looks to see if the target resource at the Business Request level is in a specified Access Request policy; if so, the engine then gets the Approval Flow policy specified for the Access Request policy.

2. If the Business Request Type is not defined as specified in Step 1 above nor defined for the Access Request policy of the target resource for the type, then the engine looks at the Business Request itself to see what is specified as the Approval Flow policy.

Item Level

1. The Approval engine first looks at the Item Type Action per the Access Request policy to see if the policy designates different Approval Flow policies for the resource of the item based on its Access Request policy.

2. If there is not an Access Request policy defined in this way for the Item Type Action, the engine looks at the Item Type Action itself to see if there is a specific Approval Flow Rule set for it. For example, an action like Add Account To Group can have a different Approval Flow Rule than the Remove Account From Group action.

3. Finally, if there is not a specific Approval Flow Rule set on the Item Type Action, the Approval engine falls back to the Approval Flow Policy for the item as specified on the item’s Access Request policy.

Figure 4 above depicts from a high level how approval flows work in EmpowerID. In the figure, a new Business Request is created to onboard an employee. As part of the onboarding request, several items are requested, a Business Role, an Application Role, and a Management Role. The Approval Policy for the Business Request is configured with two Approval Steps. The first step requires approval by the manager of the employee and the second step requires approval by the finance department. In each of the steps, Item Level approval is configured, meaning that the manager and the finance department can approve individual items and reject others. Items approved by all steps are then fulfilled by the system, while items rejected within any of the steps are not.

Access Request Policies

Access Request policies are used to control access to resources in EmpowerID and can be used to designate different Approval Flow policies for resources based on their Access Request policy. With this model, you create the Approval Flow policies first and then add them to the Access Request policy when you create it. EmpowerID includes a default out-of-the-box Access Request policy that meets most situations.  In the order of priority to determine the proper approval flow policy for an item, the approval flow policy set on the Access Request Policy is evaluated last.

Fulfillment

Fulfillment is the process by which EmpowerID fulfills approved Business Requests. Fulfillment is the completing action of “adding a user to an Application Role” or “provisioning a mailbox in Azure”, etc. When the items in a Business Request pass through all levels of approval, the items are then ready for fulfillment. Fulfillment is handled by the Business Request Item Fulfillment Job. This job claims items ready for fulfillment and does one of two things, depending on whether those items have Correlation IDs associated with them.

1. Fulfill in Different Workflow (No Correlation ID) – Sends items without Correlation IDs to the fulfillment workflow specified for the related Item Action Types. For example, if a user is to be added to a Management Role, the item would be fulfilled by the workflow specified for that action. These items are never sent back to the calling workflow operation for resumption. The calling workflow exits the process.

2. Fulfill in Initial Workflow (Correlation ID) – Returns items with Correlation IDs back to the calling workflow operation where approval was required to proceed.

Figure 5 below visually depicts from a high level how fulfillment occurs based on whether Correlation IDs exist for an executed workflow.