Approvals

Morpheus and Service Now Approvals

Available in Morpheus v2.10+

Policies can be created for groups and clouds to require approvals for actions with the built-in Morpheus approvals engine, or via a ServiceNow integration. 

Configuring Morpheus for Approvals

To configure Morpheus Appliance for approvals:

• Configure roles
• Configure ServiceNow integration for SNOW approvals.. *Please note ServiceNow integration is not required for Internal Approvals.
• Create approvals policies for:
• Internal Approvals
• SNOW Approvals

Setting Approval access in Admin -> Roles

Configure the role access setting in Admin -> Roles -> (Role) named Operations: Approvals. 

• All Users with a Role applied containing Operations: Approvals set to Full will have approval authority, and be able to Approve, Deny or Cancel approval requests. 
• All Users with a Role applied that has Operations: Approvals set to Read will be able to view Approval requests and history, but will not be able to Approve, Deny or Cancel approval requests. 
• All Users with a Role applied that has Operations: Approvals set to None will not have access to the Operations: Approvals section, and such will not be able to see or act on approval requests. 
• Regardless of Role settings, any instance or app provisioned by any user to a group or cloud will an active Approval policy applied will require approval before the instance or app will provision. 

Configure ServiceNow integration for SNOW Approvals

1. To use ServiceNow for approvals:
2. Navigate to Admin -> Integrations 
3. Select + NEW INTEGRATION
4. Select ServiceNow from the Type dropdown in the Integration modal and enter:
• Name Name of the integration in Morpheus
• Host URL of the ServiceNow host (ex: https://ven0000.service-now.com)
• User Username of a user in ServiceNow that is able to access the REST interface and create/update incidents, workflows, etc.
• Password Password for User above
5. Save Changes

Morpheus then configures the integration with ServiceNow, syncs ServiceNow workflows which are available when creating approvals policies. (This process can take up to 5 minutes depending on the size of the workflow table in ServiceNow.)

Creating Approval Policies

• Policies applied to a Group are created in Infrastructure -> Groups -> (group) -> Policies tab.
• Policies applied to a Cloud are created in Infrastructure -> Clouds -> (cloud) -> Policies tab.

To create an Internal Approval policy:

1. Navigate to the Policies tab in the Group or Cloud to which the policy will apply.
2. Select + ADD POLICY to open the New Policy wizard
3. Select Provision Approval from the Type dropdown
4. Add an optional description
5. Leave Enabled selected for this Policy to be active once saved. *Enabled can be deselected to disable to policy.
6. In the config section, select either Internal Approvals or SNOW Approvals:
• Internal Approvals: Approval requests will be managed within Morpheus via the Operations: Approvals section.
• SNOW Approvals: Approval requests will be managed with ServiceNow (SNOW). Please note a ServiceNow integration (Admin: Integrations) must be configured prior to SNOW Approval policy generation. 
7. For SNOW Approvals, select the appropriate ServiceNow workflow for this policy. Please note the workflows presented are created in ServiceNow and synced with Morpheus. 
8. Add the Morpheus Accounts to which this policy will apply, or leave the Accounts field blank to apply to all accounts. 
9. Save

Internal Approvals:

SNOW Approvals:

Upon saving, a new policy is created in the Group or Cloud Policies tab.

• Please note SNOW Approvals will take a few moments to save as the policy is generated.

Managing Approval Requests

Once Instance Approval policies are added to a group or cloud, any Instance or App provisioned into that group or cloud will create an approval request entry in the Operations: Approvals section.

Instances requiring provisioning approval will have a PENDING status until approved.

Each Approval Request will have:

• Request: What is being requested
• Type: The type of the approval request
• Request For: Name and link to Instance 
• Status
• Date Created
• Requested By
• Actions dropdown
• For Internal Approval Requests
• Approve
• Deny
• Cancel
• For ServiceNow Approval Requests
• Cancel

Internal approval requests

To Approve, Deny or Cancel an Internal approval request:

• Select Actions on the far right of the request
• Select Approve, Deny, or Cancel from the Actions dropdown
• Select OK on the confirmation modal

• When an Internal request is approved, the related instance will begin to provision immediately and the request will show approved.
• When an Internal request is denied, the related instances status will change to Denied and the request will show Rejected in the Approvals section.
• When an Internal request is canceled, the related related instances status will change to Cancelled and the request will be canceled.

ServiceNow Approval requests

ServiceNow approval request are managed in ServiceNow. The process of approving or rejecting requests is determined by the ServiceNow Workflow selected when configuring the SNOW Approval policy. These Workflows are configured in ServiceNow.

IMPORTANT: Morpheus syncs with ServiceNow every 5 minutes. Once an Approval Request is Approved or Rejected in Service Now, it will take up to 5 minutes for the instance to respond accordingly, and the status for the approval request in the Approvals section in Morpheus to update.