Emails are the primary source of communication and notification in Freshservice. One of the most common cases for email is approval notifications, where a Service Request(SR) or Change request needs to be approved by one or more stakeholders before the agents can work on it. Under this, it’s possible the approver might not be an agent in the system and doesn’t have access to the actual Service Request or Change.
Today it can be done only through sharing a public approval link (which many are not comfortable sharing), and the approver needs to click on the link in the email to review the details before approving or rejecting the request. This adds another step to navigate across multiple screens to login into the product before approving/rejecting the item, and there are requests to support this from within the email.
With this approval enhancement, change and service request approvers can respond to the requests directly from their inboxes. Freshservice will send an email to approval recipients where they can just reply with certain keywords in order to approve/reject the request.
Configuration of approval through email replies
In order to configure email approval.
Step 1: Navigate to the Admin -> Email Notifications -> Under Tickets -> Select Service Request Approval
Step 2: Make sure you have selected the checkbox for “Enable Email Approval”.
Step 3: Selecting “Enable Email Approval” will automatically add this text inside the email body. Optionally, you can define the reminders for approvers.
Hit the save button to get started with the email approvals for tickets.
Similarly, for Change approvals:
Step 1&2: Navigate to the Admin -> Email Notifications -> Under Changes -> Select Notify CAB member
Step 3: Selecting “Enable Email Approval” will automatically add this text inside the email body. Optionally, you can define the reminders for approvers.
Hit the save button to get started with the email approvals for changes.
Responding to a Service Request Approval
Approvals will receive an email for service request approval or change approvals.
They can revert it with the following keywords:
For Approval - Approved, Approve
Rejection - Rejected, Reject
Note: These are not case-sensitive keywords. But the email approval feature will only work if the following keywords are used.
Approval added the keyword “Approved” to the request.
Once it's approved, all the approvals will receive this email to avoid duplication.
Similar steps can be applied for service request/change rejections.
Note: In case of approval/rejection, you can also add a remark.
Make sure it's in the next line of the approval or rejection keyword. Anything from the second line onward is treated as remarks.
Tracking Approvals in Freshservice
All the requests handled by email were also captured inside Freshservice change/service management card view.
Disabling email approval for change and service requests
If you want to disable this feature. You need to uncheck the “Enable Email Approval.”
Important step: Manually, you need to remove the highlighted text and save it.
