Missing "Include approval step" option when adding approvals to a new workflow

[Eva Chan]

I’m trying to set up a new workflow in Jira Service Management that requires approvals when an issue reaches a certain status.

In the Manage Workflow page, I selected the status I want to configure, but the “Include approval step” checkbox no longer appears.

According to this help article (https://support.atlassian.com/jira-service-management-cloud/docs/add-an-approval-to-a-workflow/), the option should be available as long as there are at least two transitions configured for that status — which I’ve already verified.

I also tried adding a rule on the transition using “Block transition until approval”, but that doesn’t work for my use case, since we’re not connecting our DevOps environment to Jira and there aren’t any additional configuration options to define who the approvers are.

What’s odd is that my existing active workflows (created over a year ago) still show the approval setup properly — this seems to only be an issue when creating a new workflow from scratch.

Has anyone else run into this recently? Is there a new way to configure approval steps in the latest Jira Service Management updates, or is this a known issue/bug?

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Eva Chan 

Can you provide a screen image of what you see?

Do you recall with project template you selected when you created the project?

Is the project Team Managed or Company Managed?

[Eva Chan]

I found the issue. Seems like you cannot set approval settings until the workflow becomes Active. 

Once I assigned the workflow to a Workflow Schema, the Approval section became available for configuration. 

[Marc -Devoteam-]

Hi @Eva Chan 

This is correct, 

Even before all the changes approval steps in a workflow could only be set on an active workflow.

[Tomasz Lewandowski]

Hello @Eva Chan 

If you’re looking for a smoother way to handle approvals - especially when you don’t want to depend on workflow activation or re-publishing, you might want to take a look at Approval Path for Jira.

Our app can, but does not have to be integrated with a workflow, which really simplifies the initial setup. You can get approvals running quickly without touching workflow configuration, and later tweak it for more advanced or multi-step approval cases.

It’s a nice balance between flexibility and simplicity, especially if you manage multiple workflows or want to avoid extra schema management.