Overview of Business Request Escalations
The Business Request Escalations feature allows for creating policies that define automatic actions in case a predefined time limit is exceeded for specific steps or global steps within an open business request. These policies can trigger various actions, such as sending notifications to the approver, the approver's manager, potential approvers' managers, or the initiator. Other actions include adding additional assignees to the business request or auto-closing the step or the entire request after a certain period if no action is taken. Suppose you have an approval flow policy with multiple steps. You can create and map different escalation policies to each step. For example:
Notify the potential approver after one day
Add an assignee after two days
Auto-close the step with an "approved" status after three days
Key Components
Escalation Policy
The Approval Flow Escalation Policy is a predefined set of rules and actions that determine how to handle business requests that have not been acted upon within a specified timeframe. Once created, the policy can be added to multiple flow item actions. The policy must be linked to a particular flow item action to define what actions will be taken and after how many days.
Default Escalation Policy
A default escalation policy is applied if no specific policy is configured for an approval step. The default escalation policy includes the following three actions:
Notify Potential Approver: After three (3) days of no action, send a notification to the potential approver.
Notify Potential Approver Again: This action sends another notification if no action is taken within seven(7) days.
Notify the Target Person's Manager: If no action is taken on the business request item after fifteen (15) days, notify the target person's manager.
Escalation Policy Action
The Approval Flow Model Escalation Policy Actions component details the actions to be executed under a policy for a specific request, including the duration before escalation, necessary supporting data, and the actions themselves, along with the sequence of escalations when multiple actions are present. While creating the policy action, you can define the type of action and when that particular action will be taken.
Let's consider a scenario with three escalation actions. The first escalation action, Escalation Step A, is triggered 5 days after the business request item was created and no action was performed. The second escalation action, Escalation Step B, is activated 10 days after Step A. Finally, if the request remains unresolved, the third escalation action, Escalation Step C, is initiated 15 days after Step B.
Escalation Action Types
Escalations in EmpowerID support various out-of-the-box action types to accommodate different escalation scenarios. Currently, the following action types are supported:
Notify: Triggers the notification system to alert subscribed users.
Add Assignee: Assign a new potential approver to the step.
Auto Close Step: This step automatically sets its status based on the Approval Decision. This may result in rejecting/approving the item or moving forward as if the decision was made.
Auto Close Item: Closes the item and marks any open steps as skipped.
In the future, we also plan to support the following features to further enhance the escalation policies:
Run Workflow: This feature will allow for the initiation of a specified workflow upon escalation.
Replace Assignees: This feature will enable the replacement of existing assignees with new ones when an escalation is triggered.
Escalate After X Days
Defines the period (in days) after which an open step will trigger an escalation. The countdown begins from the start of the escalation period for the first escalation, and subsequent escalations are timed from the execution of the preceding one.
Job
The job Business Request Approvers Refresher is required to process the escalation and ensure its proper operation. The technical implementation details section below provides more details about how this works.
Technical Implementation Details
Assignment of Escalation Policies
Escalation policies are assigned at either the specific ApprovalFlowPolicyStep level or the broader ApprovalFlowStep level. If the default escalation policy is not defined at the specific level, it is applied at the broader level. Assignment fields include NextApprovalFlowEscalationPolicyActionID and NextApprovalFlowEscalationDate.
Action Order ID
Specifies the execution sequence of actions in an escalation. Actions after an AutoClose operation are redundant as they will not execute once the step or item is closed.
Processing of Escalation Policies
The "Business Request Status, Approvers, and Escalation Refresher" job scans open business requests for overdue escalations. It adds these escalations to the BusinessRequestEscalationInbox and determines if subsequent escalations should commence based on the ActionOrderID. The job also manages and processes entries in the BusinessRequestEscalationInbox. The logic for this process is encapsulated in the Custom_BusinessRequest_RefreshEscalations procedure.
The "Business Request Status, Approvers, and Escalation Refresher" job checks overdue escalations in open business requests. If there are any overdue escalations, they are added to the BusinessRequestEscalationInbox. The job then determines if subsequent escalations are required based on the ActionOrderID. Additionally, the job manages and processes the entries in the BusinessRequestEscalationInbox. The Custom_BusinessRequest_RefreshEscalations procedure encapsulates the logic for this process.