How to build an approval definition

Search for	Example	Results
A single word	`cat`	Topics that contain the word "cat". You will also find its grammatical variations, such as "cats".
A phrase. You can specify that the search results contain a specific phrase.	`"cat food"` (quotation marks)	Topics that contain the literal phrase "cat food" and all its grammatical variations. Without the quotation marks, the query is equivalent to specifying an OR operator, which finds topics with one of the individual words instead of the phrase.

Search for	Operator	Example
Two or more words in the same topic	`AND` `and` `+` (plus symbol) `&` (ampersand)	`cat AND dog` `"cat food"+milk` `"cat food"&"dog food"`
Either word in a topic	`OR` `or` `\|` (pipe)	`cat OR dog` `cat \| dog`
Topics that do not contain a specific word or phrase	`NOT` `not` `!` (exclamation point)	`NOT cat` `! dog`
Topics that contain one string and do not contain another	`^` (caret)	`cat ^ mouse`
A combination of search types	`( )` parentheses	`cat + (dog \| mouse)` `cat \| dog + (! mouse)`

From the main menu, select Administration > Configuration > Records.

Select the record type in the drop-down list at the top of the page.

Click the Approval definitions tab. The pre-defined approval definitions are listed in the left pane.

Click

Add.

Provide a title and a description for the approval plan definition.

Build the approval plan definition as described in How to build a task/approval plan, using the following elements:

Step	Description
Approval	Requires one or more users to grant an approval before the workflow can move on to the next phase.
Decision	A decision point that uses an Expression Language phrase to determine which path in the approval plan to follow.
Join	Joins two or more nodes in the approval plan. Both must be completed before moving on to the next node in the plan.
Path to	Creates a path between two nodes in the plan.

Save the plan definition.

Apply the new definition to an approval phase of a record:

To apply the new definition to an approval phase of a Release or Change record, select the phase in the Processes and Rules tab and in the Properties tab, select the new approval plan definition from the drop-down list in the Approval definition field.

To apply the new definition to an approval phase of a Proposal or Request record, select the new approval plan definition from the drop-down list in the Approval definition field in the following phase:

Record type		Approval Phase
Proposal		Review
Request	Service request	Approve
Request	Cart request	Approve