Create request on behalf of vs Line manager should review

Marco_Westerhoff

In the Portal our Service-desk employees can use the option 'Create request on behalf of' for exceptional situations. But when the work-flow contains a Review Activity with the option 'Line manager should review' selected, the reviewer becomes the manager of the Service-desk employee instead of the line manager of the selected user (in the field 'Create request on behalf of'). Is that normal behaviour or a bug?

Adam_Dzyacky

This is normal behavior, because the assumption made by Microsoft is that a Review Activity will be used in a Change Request. Since CRs have no Affected User (at least set by default) the only reliable thing too go off of is the Created By user relationship. As such, the RA then leverages Created By in this case.

The way around this is an SCO/SMA runbook that you place at the beginning of your SRs to grab the Affected User, get their manager, and then set the manager in the corresponding Review Activity. Once this is done, you can fully leverage Cireson's "Create Request on Behalf of" feature.

Adam_Dzyacky

Per your first example, the Created By User in this case would be the Service Desk analyst in which case it would grab their manager by virtue of "Line Manager Should Review" being checked off.

Per your second example, I've only ever seen that when the submitter (Created By) is the Affected User. Which is to say the end user submitted their own request and the analyst was never involved.

My assumption has always been that since "Create Request on Behalf of" is a Cireson function and not one you'd find out of box, end users would always be submitting their own requests through the OOB portal. In which case the Created By/Affected would always be identical and this particular scenario would never arise or at the very least be far less noticed.

Here are two blogposts that discuss what said SCO runbook would look like to set a Review Activity with the Affected User's manager and not the Created By. Both produce the same end result, but as you can probably see are both implemented ever so slightly differently. My preference has been creating a RA Template called "Manager Approval" and then using a RB before it to update any RA where the Title includes/starts with "Manager Approval"

http://cireson.com/blog/configuring-review-activity-with-affected-users-manager/
https://myinfrastructureblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/23/add-manager-approval-for-a-request-in-scsm/


hope i'm not stealing any of @Geoff_Ross's thunder. 

Geoff_Ross

Hi Marco,
Interesting. Its the SCSM Workflow that populates this so I will dig into how it works. It appears its using the Created by User rather then Affected User. Let me try and replicate and i'll get back to you.
Geoff

Adam_Dzyacky

This is normal behavior, because the assumption made by Microsoft is that a Review Activity will be used in a Change Request. Since CRs have no Affected User (at least set by default) the only reliable thing too go off of is the Created By user relationship. As such, the RA then leverages Created By in this case.

The way around this is an SCO/SMA runbook that you place at the beginning of your SRs to grab the Affected User, get their manager, and then set the manager in the corresponding Review Activity. Once this is done, you can fully leverage Cireson's "Create Request on Behalf of" feature.

Marco_Westerhoff

Hi Adam,
Thanks for your reaction. When I look at the history off the Review Activity, the first entry contains:
(Relationship changes): Add -> Created by User: <the user entered in field 'Create request on behalf of'>.

So if you are right (it use the Created By user relationship), then it should add line manager of the user entered in 'Create request on behalf of'. Or did I missed something?

Adam_Dzyacky

Per your first example, the Created By User in this case would be the Service Desk analyst in which case it would grab their manager by virtue of "Line Manager Should Review" being checked off.

Per your second example, I've only ever seen that when the submitter (Created By) is the Affected User. Which is to say the end user submitted their own request and the analyst was never involved.

My assumption has always been that since "Create Request on Behalf of" is a Cireson function and not one you'd find out of box, end users would always be submitting their own requests through the OOB portal. In which case the Created By/Affected would always be identical and this particular scenario would never arise or at the very least be far less noticed.

Here are two blogposts that discuss what said SCO runbook would look like to set a Review Activity with the Affected User's manager and not the Created By. Both produce the same end result, but as you can probably see are both implemented ever so slightly differently. My preference has been creating a RA Template called "Manager Approval" and then using a RB before it to update any RA where the Title includes/starts with "Manager Approval"

http://cireson.com/blog/configuring-review-activity-with-affected-users-manager/
https://myinfrastructureblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/23/add-manager-approval-for-a-request-in-scsm/


hope i'm not stealing any of @Geoff_Ross's thunder. 

Geoff_Ross

Hey, you go ahead and steal all the thunder you need. That's what this platform is all about.
Adam, I've marked your comments as answer. I reached the same conclusion in testing so I guess just never came across this before. Also, good spot that this must have to be the way as CRs don't have affected user.
Marcus, let us know if Cireson can help with some runbook automation to handle this for you.