How can we require mandatory approver comments while still using the native Approvers field in Jira

Lazo Dana Shawkat

Hi Atlassian Community,

I need advice on a Jira Service Management approval workflow requirement.

We currently have a workflow status called Owner Approval. In this status, we use the native Approvers field / approval step. Once the approver approves the request, the issue transitions to Finance Preparation.

The problem is that when we use the native approval step, we cannot force the approver to fill a mandatory comment or required approval justification field during the approval action. We tried using transition screens and validators, but the approval action does not behave like a normal workflow transition screen.

Our business requirement is:

• The request should wait for the required approver decision.

• The approver must provide a mandatory comment or approval justification.

• The issue should not move to Finance Preparation unless the approval comment / justification has been provided.

• We want to avoid a weak workaround where the issue moves forward without proper approval notes.

We considered removing the native Approvers field and replacing it with normal workflow transitions. This would allow us to add a transition screen and make the comment mandatory. However, this creates another problem: if multiple users are involved in the approval process, any user with transition permission may be able to manually move the issue forward, so it does not properly behave like the native approval process.

So we are stuck between two options:

1. Use the native Approvers field

   • Good because Jira handles approval logic.

   • Bad because we cannot enforce a mandatory comment / field during approval.

2. Remove the native Approvers field and use normal workflow transitions

   • Good because we can add transition screens, validators, and mandatory comments.

   • Bad because it becomes a manual transition and does not fully behave like a controlled approval step.

Has anyone found a clean workaround for this?

Ideally, we need one of the following:

• A way to require a comment when using the native Approve / Decline action.

• A way to show a transition screen during the approval action.

• A way to keep native approval behavior while enforcing a required field or comment before moving to the next workflow status.

• A workaround that prevents users from bypassing the remaining approvers when using normal workflow transitions.

I also found Atlassian suggestion JSDCLOUD-6989, which seems related to displaying screens during approval transitions.

Any recommended setup, automation workaround, workflow design, or app-based solution would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Anurag Vipin Vaidya

Hii @Lazo Dana Shawkat  

JSM's native approval functionality, there is currently no supported way to display a transion screen or enforce a mandatory comment / field as part of built-in Approve/Decline Action.

The Suggestion you reffered JSDCLOUD-6989 exist beacuse this limitation has been raised by many users 

from my experience the options generally 

1.Stay with native Approvers recommended if approval integrity is most important 

Keep native approval step 

use an automation rule to detect approval where no comment / justification was provided and notified the approver reopen to detect approvals stage or flagthe issue for follow-up 

This does not truly enforce the requiement before approval but it preserves JSM's Approval control and multi-approver logic 

2. Replace native approvals with workflow transition 

Create dedicated Approve/Reject transitions with transition screens and validators.
 Restrict transition permissions using workflow conditions (for example, only users in a specific role, group, or a user stored in a custom field can execute the transition).
This gives you mandatory comments and required fields, but you lose some of the native approval experience and management provided by the Approvers field.

3. Use Marketplace app 

Several workflow/approval apps extend JSM approvals and can enforce mandatory fields, comments, or approval forms while maintaining controlled approval behavior. If this requirement is business-critical, an app is often the cleanest solution.

So, if your primary requirement is "only designated approvers can approve and multiple approvers must be respected," I'd keep the native approval step and use automation as a compensating control. If the mandatory justification is non-negotiable, then a custom workflow-based approval process (or an app) is usually the only way to enforce it before the transition occurs.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone has found a Cloud-native solution that enforces mandatory comments directly on the built-in approval action