How to set up approvers with condition via automation only?

Question

Hello, I have a company-managed project. Due to my company's restriction, only Atlassian support team can be Jira admin. While I am an admin for the JSM project, I do not have the Jira admin capabilities.

I want to check if it is possible to set up the approvers with conditions using only the automation.

For context, I have a JSM project which when users create a ticket it is in 'In Draft' status. When the status moved to 'In Review by System Owners' status, I want to autopopulate the approvers to the business and technology system owners.

Now I have 4 system owners:
1. Primary Tech Owner (PTO)
2. Secondary Tech Owner (STO)
3. Primary Biz Owner (PBO)
4. Secondary Biz Owner (SBO)

Now my automation I set it is to add all 4 under the approvers and it works. But right now I want to make amendments whereby at least one approval from each group is required to move the status forward.

Currently it requires all 4 to approve then the ticket moves, but now I want to set it like this whereby any of the combination approvals below, it moves the ticket:
1. PTO + PBO
2. PTO + SBO
3. PBO + STO
4. STO + SBO

Essentially I want one from each Tech / Biz owner approval, then it moves the ticket forward.

Can this be set up solely by automation? Or only via workflow?

Currently this is what I have for the adding approvers:

Hari Krishna · Answer

No, this cannot be done using automation only.
What you’re trying to achieve (1 approval from Tech + 1 from Business) is not supported by JSM’s native Approval field, and automation cannot change that behavior.

In Jira Service Management, the Approval field works in only two ways:

All approvers must approve, or

A fixed number of approvers must approve

It does not understand logical group conditions like “at least one from Tech AND one from Business”. Even if you set “2 approvers required”, Jira cannot control which two approve, so PTO+STO or PBO+SBO can still satisfy the rule — exactly the limitation you’re seeing.

Creating two approver groups (Tech / Biz) also won’t solve this, because:

Groups require static membership

You cannot dynamically populate groups per ticket using custom fields

Automation can add users to the Approvers field and can watch approval outcomes, but it cannot override or partially evaluate approvals. That logic is enforced strictly at the workflow approval step level, which only Jira Admins can configure.

The only supported options today are:

Have Atlassian Support / Jira Admin redesign the workflow using separate approval steps (Tech approval → Biz approval), or

Build a custom workaround using extra fields (e.g., Tech Approved = Yes, Biz Approved = Yes) and let automation transition the issue when both conditions are met — this bypasses the native Approval field entirely.

Unfortunately, there is no way to enforce “1 from each group” using only automation with the standard Approval field.

Nur Fatin · Answer

Hi @Hari Krishna thank you for your response. Unfortunately my Jira admin has checked, but he can only set to the number of approvers. So when he selected only 2 people from Approvers need to approve, it still doesn't address the conditions I have. Because the approvers can be both PTO and STO or PBO or SBO.

Is it better to create 2 approvers group? I am concern if it requires a fixed user to be added to the group. Because each ticket will have different owners. Is it possible to set up the approver groups but add the users according to the customfields instead?

I am also exploring automation as a workaround to watch if any of the conditions are met, then transit the ticket to the next status, but it doesn't work either.

Appreciate any tips in advance. Thank you.

Hari Krishna · Answer

Hi @Nur Fatin ,

Unfortunately, Jira Automation cannot directly override how JSM’s built-in Approval field works — i.e., you can’t define partial approval logic (like “1 from each group”) using automation alone. but If your Atlassian Support team (global admins) can assist, the proper way is to do it at the workflow level with approval steps.