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About Approving or Rejecting a Package

The Approve Package function guarantees that changes to production components are fully authorized.

An approval list is assigned to a package when the package is created. The approval list for planned packages may be different from the approval list for unplanned packages. Other approvals may be automatically assigned to the package later in the package lifecycle, but no required approval is removed.

There can be multiple approvals required for a package, and multiple individuals can be granted authorization in your security system to enter a particular approval. Your application administrator can define approvals in a hierarchy so that some approvals must be entered before others, or your administrator can allow approvals to be entered in any order.

Your application administrator can set up notifications for approvals. The notification list is separate from the list of userids authorized to enter an approval. Notifications can be sent using MVS SEND broadcast messages or other methods such as email. If your application administrator defines approvals in a hierarchy, notification for an approval is held until the approval can be entered. Otherwise, all notifications are sent when a package is frozen.

A package approver has four choices when they take action on an approval:

  • Approve the package for installation.

  • Reject the package and require that the package be reverted to DEV status for changes.

  • Flag the package as Under Review, indicating that the package will be approved or rejected at a later time.

  • Add notes to a free form text checkoff list panel without approving or rejecting the package.

Your administrator can configure your application to build package installation JCL when you freeze your package or when the final package approval is entered. Installation JCL is created in a file tailoring server that runs in an address space separate from your ChangeMan ZMF session.

When the final approval for a package is entered, the status of the package is immediately changed to APR. If installation JCL is built after final approval in your application, the package is not distributed to production sites or inserted into the scheduler, and you cannot revert the package, until file tailoring for installation JCL completes successfully.