Patent attributes
A service provider system may implement an approval service that manages approval requests received from other services on behalf of a customer organization and its end users. An administrator in the organization may create approval templates that define voting strategies at multiple approval levels and associate them with particular requests (individually, or by product, portfolio, project, action, message topic, workflow, or request type). The administrator may create approval groups whose members are authorized to respond to particular requests. Each approval template (or approval level) may include a different voting strategy or be associated with a different approval group. The approval system may support pre-notification of subsequent approval levels, auto-escalation, or auto-expiration. The approval service may employ a notification service to manage actionable notification messages that include approval requests. Members of approval groups may retrieve requests and select from available actions (e.g., approve, deny, or request more information).
