How to Approve or Reject an Approval from ServiceNow

A knowledge base article about How to Approve or Reject an Approval from ServiceNow provided by the UC Berkeley IT Service Hub - Knowledge Portal

How to Approve or Reject an Approval Request

Purpose

This will walk you through reviewing and approving/rejecting an approval for a request from the IT Service Catalog.

Very Important Note

Once an approval is approved or rejected, the Requested Item that required this approval immediately moves onto it’s next phase. If you alter the approval, it will not stop or alter the Requested Item and it’s workflow. Once you approve or reject, you cannot recind or change the approval. If you need to, you will want to create an incident within ServiceNow so that we can undo what was done, if possible. This may take time and is subject to normal business hours since manual effort will need to be made.

How do I know I have an approval waiting?

Email

You will recieve an email whenever you are requested to review and approve/reject a request placed through the IT Service Catalog within ServiceNow. From this email you can approve, reject, open the approval within ServiceNow or go to the requested item you are approving for more details.
Example Email Request

Within ServiceNow’s Employee Self Service portal

You can open ServiceNow at any time and view your pending and past approvals using the Employee Self Service portal.

  1. Find your approvals by going to ServiceNow and clicking on the My Approvals link.

  2. Review the list of approvals. To open an approval, click on the link in the furthest left column, State.

  3. View an individual approval. You can approve or reject using the Approve and Reject buttons in the upper right of the approval record.

    Viewing an Approval in the Employee Self Service portal

IT Staff Fulfilment

If you are one of the IT staff users of ServiceNow, you can use the fulfilment view of your approvals to see the same list of approvals.

  1. Find your approvals by going to ServiceNow and searching My Approvals in the application menu. Click on the My Approvals link that appears under Self-Service.

    How to find My Approvals in the Fulfilment view

  2. Review the list of approvals. To open an approval, click on the link in the furthest left column, State.

    Approval list as seen from the Fulfilment View

  3. View an individual approval. You can approve or reject using the Approve and Reject buttons in the upper right of the approval record.

    Viewing an approval from the Fulfilment view

How do I approve or reject a request?

Via Email

You have 2 ways to approve or reject a request when you are viewing the email.

Using the links to create a special reply email

  1. Within the email record there are 2 links which will create a specially formatted email you can use to quickly approve or reject the request.

    Approve and Reject links in approval emails

  2. Note the special subject line and nearly empty body. The Ref:MSG### watermark is important for it to link to the correct approval. The subject tells ServiceNow that you are approving or rejecting the request.

    Email Approval Example

    If you alter the special email in any way, it may not be processed properly.

If you want to add a comment, open the related Requested Item and add a comment directly.

Opening the approval recording using the link in the email

  1. Within the email there is a direct link to the approval record in the Employee Self Service Portal.

    Opening the approval record form an email

  2. You can approve or reject using the Approve and Reject buttons in the upper right.

    Viewing the Approval record in the Employee Self Service portal once you clicked on the link in the email

Via the Self Service Portal

  1. Find your approvals by going to ServiceNow and clicking on the My Approvals link.

    My Approvals link in the Employee Self Service portal

  2. Open the approval you want to approve or reject by clicking on the link in the farthest left column, State.

    List of Approvals as seen in the Employee Self Service portal

  3. You can approve or reject using the Approve and Reject buttons in the upper right of the approval record.

    An Approval as seen in the Employee Self Service portal

Via the Fulfilment View

  1. Find your approvals by going to ServiceNow and searching My Approvals in the application menu. Click on the My Approvals link that appears under Self-Service.

    How to get to My Approvals in the Fulfilment view

  2. Open the approval you want to approve or reject by clicking on the link in the farthest left column, State.

    List of Approvals as seen in the Fulfilment view

  3. You can approve or reject using the Approve and Reject buttons in the upper right of the approval record.

    An Approval as seen in the Fulfilment View

 

Note: A comment is mandatory when approving or rejecting from the Approval detail screen.  It is not required when approving/rejecting from the list view or through email.