Siebel Approval Manager Overview

This chapter provides an overview of Siebel Approval Manager. It includes the following topics:

About Siebel Approval Manager

Siebel Approval Manager (SAM) provides users an approval process to manage approvals of development work. For example, developers can use SAM with an associated issue tracking system (such as Bugzilla, Jira) to fix issues (or bugs). When developers have bug fixes or customizations to deliver, they need to check the fixes or changes into their Software Configuration Management for source code systems (or SCM systems), so they would use SAM to create an approval request record, and that approval request record gathers approval manager, approval committee, QA approvals, or the whole approval process. When the request approval is complete, SAM can initiate the check-in process to check the bug fix into the SCM system.

Within Siebel applications, SAM is most useful when used along with Siebel Workspace. If users make workspace changes, they can make the workspace changes locally and then use SAM to submit an approval request. After the request is approved, workspace changes are delivered into the main Siebel system. In addition to Siebel Workspace, SAM can be used with other third-party tools such as ClearCase, SVN, github, and so on.

You can use SAM for Siebel CRM development, but SAM can also work independently with other applications. It integrates with several third-party issue tracking and software configuration systems (or Software Configuration Management of source code), including the email integration that provides both notifications and approvals across the development team.

SAM is a stand-alone application from Oracle Siebel. This application runs on Tomcat, and its user interface is consistent with Siebel's products and shares the same CSS implementation. This application can be displayed on desktops, tablets, or handheld devices.

You can configure almost all fields in the SAM system, including the fields that SAM populates from the defect tracking system. SAM stores the copy of issue tracking data and subsequent workflow activities in a database for future reporting. This application also supports multiple approval workflows and validates fields using regular expression matching when the data is populated from the associated issue tracking system.

Siebel Approval Manager Workflow

SAM approval workflow follows specific steps in the SAM approval process. These steps can be defined specifically for an approval profile or for all approval profiles.

The SAM approval workflow includes the following steps:

Developer enters the unique issue identifier from the associated issue tracking system (for example, the bug number from Bugzilla) into the SAM application.
SAM populates all detailed information from the associated issue tracking system to the SAM application itself.
Developer enters the source code location such as branch, workspace name, and so on.
SAM validates the source code branch or workspace.
Developer submits the approval request.
Depending on the approval process that is set up by the SAM administrators, approval managers or approval committees are notified.
Approvers review the request and then either approve or deny the requests.
SAM delivers the source code or workspaces information to the SCM (Software Configuration Management) system.

Siebel Approval Manager Integration

SAM provides a REST interface for the integrations that are listed in the following table:

Table REST interface for integrations

System	Activity	Example Connector
Issue Tracking	Input ID and list of fields. Output list of field values.	Bugzilla, Jira
Issue Tracking	Update a defect at various events in the application (developer submission, approvals, and so on).	Bugzilla, Jira
Code Review	Pull in code review details for a particular change.	Review Board
Software Configuration	Pull in list of files on the given branch, private branch validation, or rebase validation.	ClearCase, SVN, GitHub, Siebel Workspace
Software Configuration	Possibly automatically check in code after it is approved.	ClearCase, SVN, GitHub, Siebel Workspace
Email	Deliver emails upon specific application events (approval required or approvals completed).	SMTP-compliant email systems and more
Email	Accept manager and committee approvals using email.	IMAP-compliant email systems and more

Note: It is simple to develop the REST APIs to connect to your issue tracking and software configuration systems. For more information on how to develop the REST APIs for Siebel Approval Manager and information about the working examples, see REST APIs for SAM.