Rule to autoapprove a step if approver has already approved in another step?

Question

Pretend you have two approval steps: "Waiting on VP Approval" and "Waiting on Supervisor Approval."

Sometimes these are the same person.  For example, if you work for the VP, he/she is your supervisor and the VP, making it where the VP has to approve at both steps.

We have the Automation for JSD plugin.  Is there a way to make a rule similar to this logic?

Triggered when an approval is required: if the approver has approved in a previous step, autoapprove this step.

MK_76ws8t · Answer

You may use script Runner or JWT for this based on the approver field values.

Jason Freeman · Answer

And it's actually even more complex than that I stated above.

Let's say I try to create the following automation rule:

WHEN Approval Required

IF Item Matches JQL "HR Data Custodian" = "Immediate Supervisor"

THEN Auto-approve/decline

I can't do the above rule because it'll give the following error message: The value 'Immediate Supervisor' does not exist for the field 'HR Data Custodian'.  It forces me to choose the name of a user instead of a field name like "Immediate Supervisor."

So, this makes it substantially more complex.

Jason Freeman · Answer

So far, we have worked around this problem by creating a bunch of rules that compare the value of the current approval step to a previous step.

Example: If ("Vice President" = "Supervisor") { Autoapprove This Step }

Those rules technically work, but they are getting out of control and too complex.  We are running into situations we never anticipated, and some of our rules are getting difficult to troubleshoot because we are trying to anticipate every single scenario.

Another example: I would have to write a rule to see if the VP and Data Custodian are the same, another to see if the VP and the Supervisor are the same, and another to see if the Data Custodian and Supervisor are the same.  That's three rules just for one workflow.  That's insane.