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Introduction to policies in Enterprise Marketplace
Published On Jun 14, 2024 - 9:31 AM

Introduction to policies in Enterprise Marketplace

Automate the approval process by establishing specific parameters for each scenario.
In Enterprise Marketplace, you can set the platform policy engine to interpret rules, review the budget, and evaluate outcomes to automatically approve or deny an order.
Policy contexts determine which budget an order is placed in. A policy can be active or inactive, depending on the policy's start and end dates. The following rules apply for when policies are used:
  • An active policy globally applies to all orders meeting the policy's criteria.
  • When a policy is inactive, order approval uses the default approval workflow.
  • When a policy is active, but the budget does not meet the criteria for auto approval, the default order approval workflow applies.
Policies can also be in the draft status. Draft policies have been saved but are not yet available for use.

Roles that can manage approval policies

Users with the Policy Admin role can create and configure approval policies based on the requirements that Approvers use to approve or deny orders. The Buyer and Approver roles can view the policy-based approvals. Only users with the Policy Admin role can access the
Policy Admin
 page. To learn more about navigating to the different services from each tenant, refer to Landing page navigation or Kyndryl Bridge Landing page navigation.

Design your approval policies

An approval policy consists of one or more rules that determine the approval flow. These rules contain criteria that must be met before the policy is enacted. Typically these rules involve checking against budgets, but other criteria can be encoded as well. The default policy is manual approval, and is available out of the box. You might have a policy for each region, for example. The policies are checked in order, and the first one whose criteria are met is applied. For more information, see Ranking policies. Similarly, policies can have multiple rules that are ranked and are checked in the same manner.
For example, you might want to create a policy to auto approve or auto deny an order:
  • For the policy to auto approve:
     The total of the
    order total + other orders in approval + already committed amount + already spent amount
     is less than the budget's soft quota threshold.
  • For the policy to auto deny:
     The total of the
    already committed amount + already spent amount
     is greater than or equal to the hard quota threshold for the budget.

Create an approval policy

If you want to create an approval policy, you need to create the policy itself and then add any rules that you want it to execute. To begin this process, complete the following steps:
  1. Navigate to the
    Approval Policies
     page. To learn more about navigating to the different services from each tenant, refer to Landing page navigation or Kyndryl Bridge Landing page navigation.
  2. Click
    Create New Policy
     in the upper right of the
    Approval Policies
     page.
  3. Enter a descriptive
    Name
     for the new policy.
  4. In the
    Duration
     section, determine whether the policy will be temporary or permanent:
    • For a permanent policy, select
      Does not expire
      .
    • For a temporary policy, select a
      Start Date
       and an
      End Date
       using the date pickers or enter them in mm/dd/yyyy format.
  5. Select either
    Draft
     or
    Active
     status. Set policies that you do not want to affect the system yet to
    Draft
    . Draft policies can be activated later.
  6. In the
    Associate This Asset Credential with a Business Entity
     section, select
    Basic
     or
    Advanced
    . The entity that you select is the one that is affected by the policy.
    • For
      Basic
      , select a business entity. You have the choice of
      Organization
       and
      Team
      . The
      Values
       field is populated based on your selection. Select the business entity that you want from that list.
    • For
      Advanced
      , you can select multiple options for the policy. Only something that matches all of your selections will be affected by the policy. You can click
      Show Associated
       to only display your selections.
      • Like
        Basic
        , you have the choice of
        Organization
         and
        Team
        . The
        Values
         field is populated based on your selection. Select the business entity that you want from that list.
      • ICAM Namespace:
         Set the policy to affect only a specific ICAM namespace, or select
        ALL
        .
      • Environment:
         Set the policy to affect only a single environment, or
        ALL
         of them in your system.
      • Application:
         Set to affect only one application, or
        ALL
         of them.
  7. Click
    Add Rule
     to begin the process of adding a rule to the policy. For more information, see . Repeat this process as many times as needed to add all the rules that you need.

Adding rules to a policy

Rules are tied to policies and determine the approval outcomes for each step in the workflow. When a policy is enforced, the rules associated with that policy are checked one by one in order. If the conditions in any of the rules in the policy are met, the policy is enforced on that order. To create a rule, complete these steps:
  1. Near the bottom of the
    Approval Policies
     page, click
    Add Rule
    . To learn more about navigating to the different services from each tenant, refer to Landing page navigation or Kyndryl Bridge Landing page navigation.
  2. On the
    Order Conditions
     tab, enter the following information and then click
    Next
     if you want to add
    Cost & Budget Conditions
     or
    Catalog Configuration Conditions
    , or
    Save
     to create the new rule:
    • Name:
       Enter a descriptive name for the rule.
    • Provider:
       Select the providers that you want the rule to apply to.
    • Select the stages of the catalog's lifecycle that you want the rule to be applied at. These stages are available:
      • New:
         When the order is first placed.
      • Edited:
         Whenever the instance is edited in the inventory.
      • ServiceAction:
         When the Instance is subject to an action.
      • Transfer:
         When the ownership of the instance is transferred.
    • Approval Outcomes:
       Select from the following options for both Technical and Financial approvals:
      • Manual Approval (default):
         The order request must be manually approved before it can be provisioned.
      • Auto Approve:
         The order request is automatically approved if the rule is met.
      • Auto Deny:
         The order request is automatically denied if the rule is met.
      • External Approval:
         This sends the approval request to a linked ITSM system. Select the external approval system in the
        Extenral Approval Name
         field. After the approval or denial is done in that system, that information is sent back to Enterprise Marketplace. For more information, see ITSM provider integration.
  3. If desired, you can add budget rules on the
    Cost & Budget Conditions
     tab. Enter the following information and then click
    Next
     if you want to add
    Catalog Configuration Conditions
    , or
    Save
     to create the new rule:
    • Cost:
       Configure a rule that is activated based on the estimate price of the catalog. Enter the following information:
      • Select the Boolean expression you want to use, such as
        Greater than
        ,
        Less than
        , and so on.
      • Enter the
        Monthly Cost
         to compare the Boolean expression to.
      • Select whether to
        Include one time charge in calculation
        . One time charges are typically installation fees and the like.
    • Budget:
       Configure the rule that compares the price of the catalog to a specified budget. Select from the following options:
      • Available
      • Not Available
      • Not Applicable
  4. On the
    Catalog Configuration Conditions
     tab, you can optionally apply the rule only to specific catalogs. Select one or more catalogs from the dropdown menu.
  5. Click
    Save
    .

Ranking rules

The rules are checked in the order that you put them in, starting with 1. The first rule whose criteria are met is applied. For example, in this scenario the Policy Admin creates the following ranked rules:
  1. Provider = AWS for rule 1
  2. Provider = Azure for rule 2
If an order is placed with
Provider = Google
, the system first evaluates the rule 1 and determines it is not a match. Next, the system evaluates rule 2 and determines that rule is also not a match. The order routes to the manual approval process. However, when an order is placed with
Provider = Azure
, the order follows the approval outcomes defined in the rule.

Ranking policies

When an order is placed, Enterprise Marketplace compares the order to each policy, in the order in which they are ranked, until it finds a policy with a rule whose criteria matches the order. After a policy with a matching rule is found, that policy is applied and the system does not review any additional policies.
If Enterprise Marketplace is unable to find any matches, order approval defaults to the manual approval process described in Approval process.
For example, a Policy Admin has set up three policies. The Policy Admin ranks the policies as follows:
  1. Team A
     for policy 1
  2. Team B
     for policy 2
  3. All Orgs
     for policy 3
An order is placed with
Team B
 selected. Enterprise Marketplace first evaluates policy 1 to determine if it is a match, which it is not. The system then evaluates policy 2, determines that it is a match, and applies that policy. Enterprise Marketplace never looks at policy 3 for evaluation even though the order matches those criteria.
To reorder your policies, complete these steps:
  1. Navigate to the
    Policies
     page. To learn more about navigating to the different services from each tenant, refer to Landing page navigation or Kyndryl Bridge Landing page navigation.
  2. Click the dropdown arrow beside the Ranking number of the policy for which you want to adjust ranking.
  3. Select a number from the dropdown list of the new ranking number you want to assign to the policy. A warning message asks if you are sure you want to continue. Click
    Cancel
     to quit the function without saving changes. Click
    Continue
     to assign the new rank to the policy.

Managing policies

All the policies that you have created will be listed on the
Approval Policies
 page. A policy can be in a Draft, Active, or Retired state:
  • Draft:
     The Policy Admin sets up and edits the policy and its rules in this the Draft state. Draft policies can be edited in their entirety.
  • Active:
     Enterprise Marketplace uses Active policies to automatically approve or deny orders. The Policy Admin can edit only the End Date. Policy status can be changed to Retired or back to Draft for more extensive editing.
  • Retired:
     This state stores the inactive policy in the system. Retired policies cannot be edited. The Policy Admin can view, duplicate, or delete the policy.
If you want to make a policy become active in the future, set the policy to the desired date and switch the policy to Active. The policy will then become effective at the beginning of the day on the desired Start Date. A policy will evaluate orders after the beginning of the day of the End Date has been reached. The policy still indicates an Active status even when the End Date has passed, but it will no longer be used to evaluate orders.
If you select a value other than
Not Applicable
 for Budget and a budget conflict occurs, the budget conflict must be resolved before the order can go through the manual approval workflow.
To find a specific policy, you can sort the approval policies list based on the columns by clickign the heading of that column.

Editing a draft approval policy

To edit an approval policy, complete the following steps:
  1. On the
    Approval Policies
     page, in the far right column of the policy that you want to edit, click the
    Actions
     icon and select
    View Details
    .
  2. Edit the form as needed. If you want to add a rule, see the steps in Adding rules to a policy. If you want to alter a rule, click the
    Actions
     icon in the far right column of the rule that you want to edit and select
    View Details
    . When you are finished, click
    Update
    .
  3. Click
    Update
     in the upper-right corner.

Duplicating an approval policy

You can create duplicates to make it easier to create new approval policies based on existing ones. To duplicate an approval policy, complete the following steps:
  1. Navigate to the
    Policies
     page. To learn more about navigating to the different services from each tenant, refer to Landing page navigation or Kyndryl Bridge Landing page navigation.
  2. In the far-right column of the policy you want to duplicate, click the
    Actions
     icon and select
    Duplicate
    .

Deleting an approval policy

To delete an approval policy, complete the following steps:
  1. Navigate to the
    Policies
     page. To learn more about navigating to the different services from each tenant, refer to Landing page navigation or Kyndryl Bridge Landing page navigation.
  2. In the far-right column of the policy that you want to delete, click the
    Actions
     icon and select
    Delete
    .

Exporting and importing approval policies

Approval policies can be exported from one system and imported into another, for example from a test system to your production system. To export or import an approval policy, complete the following steps:
  1. Navigate to the
    Policies
     page. To learn more about navigating to the different services from each tenant, refer to Landing page navigation or Kyndryl Bridge Landing page navigation.
  2. Click
    Export
     or
    Import
     in the upper-right corner of the
    Approval Policies
     page. Exporting provides an uneditable
    .zip
     file.
Importing removes all of the approval policies from the system and replaces them with the imported policies.
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