Create
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Sign up Log in

2nd Level Approval Workflow

Duc Anh Le
Contributor
June 27, 2023

Hi everyone,

I am trying to build out a Jira workflow for my company but having some difficulties. Please help.

When folks request work equipment, they fill out a Jira Form at our company. Generally, if it's just basic items (mouse, keyboard, headphones...) the request will send to their direct manager for approval. 

But when they select an item such as Personal Priter, Ipad, or iPhone, they will need additional approval from a (VP) on top of the approval from their direct manager.

When this happens, I want the request to be approved by the direct manager first before sending the approval request to the VP. 

 I haven't been able to get this to work yet. Please help.

 

Screenshot 2023-06-27 125608.png

3 answers

1 accepted

3 votes
Answer accepted
Kai Becker
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
June 27, 2023

Hi @Duc Anh Le ,

welcome to the community and thank you for your question. 
As of what I can see, you are on the right track, chaining two Approval steps after another.

Could you explain a little bit more, what your problem is? Maybe you could post some screenshots?

If it is the decision for the 2nd Approval, you might need to add a condition to the two transitions leaving your first Approval. Both need to check for the devices. 

If device is Mouse, ... --> direct approval
If device is Printer, ... --> 2nd approval

Depending on the custom field you use for the device, a Value Field condition could work. 
It might be necessary to connect multiple conditions with or per transition (one for each device type).

Hope this helps 🙂

Duc Anh Le
Contributor
June 27, 2023

Hi @Kai Becker 

Thank you for your response and the warm welcome.

Yes, the transition out of Waiting for Approval is where I am having issues.

I created a custom field called EVP Approver. When the user selects a Printer in the form, the EVP Approver field became visible and required. The user now must select the EVP approver before submitting the ticket. 

There are 2 "approved" transitions out of the Waiting for Approval Status

  • Direct approval (when it's only a mouse). I have the transition condition setup as when EVP Approver is empty below screenshot: Direct Approved transition.png
  • 2nd approval (when it's a printer). I have the transition condition setup as EVP Approver is not empty.2nd Approval Transition.png

    I created a test ticket and have the printer selected and picked the EVP Approver. When the 1st approver hits approve, the issue immediately transitions to Waiting for Support ( instead of Waiting for 2nd Approval as I hoped for). 

    So I checked the approval step config within the Waiting for Approval status and saw that you must pick your transition when approved. I am not 100% sure but this seems to bypass all the conditions I have set above. Maybe I didn't set something correctly? Thx

    Waiting for approval Status setup.png
Like • # people like this
Tim Perrault
Rising Star
Rising Star
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
June 27, 2023

Try setting the condition on the equipment field. If the value = mouse and so on

Like • # people like this
Kai Becker
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
June 27, 2023

Hi @Duc Anh Le , 

thanks for clarification. This is a really good approval workflow use case. I haven't had such a constellation before, but I guess it should be solvable.

My idea would be to only use one approval status, but to modify the people need to approve via automation rule.

  1. Ticket gets created and fields are set (like you noted)
  2. if device is to expensive, an automation rule would be triggered and set a second approver to the first approval step (maybe another email has to be send for the second approval, which could be done via automation too)
  3. the approval step is configured to have all people to approve the request
  4. after too approvals the issue is transition to the status in your configuration

I have not tried this by myself, so I'm not a hundred percent sure, but it might give you another option to play around with.

There are also automation triggers for completed approvals, as described here.

 

EDIT: Please try the hint from Tim first.

Like • # people like this
Duc Anh Le
Contributor
June 27, 2023

Hi @Tim Perrault and @Kai Becker

Thank you!

Yes I've tried automation but it comes with a downside:

  • If the expensive items get selected - I can use automation to add the VP as the 2nd approver and set both of them (Direct Manager and VP) must approve before transitioning to the next step (Waiting for Support).
    • Downside: The VP will immediately get bombarded with an approval request and automation notification while the direct manager might deny the request.
    • Ideally, I want this to be 2 step process:
      • The direct manager needs to review the request first
      • And if everything looks good and is approved, the ticket will go to the VP for 2nd approval.

In the Article, @Kai Becker shared, the case is always 2-step approval. My case is both 1-step and 2-step approvals which go back to my original question.

 

Thanks

Like • # people like this
Kai Becker
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
June 28, 2023

Hi @Duc Anh Le

I'm going to try this in my demo environment and get back to you within this week.
There might be some other things we could test out. 🙂

Like • # people like this
Duc Anh Le
Contributor
June 28, 2023

@Kai Becker Thank you so much! 

Like • # people like this
Kai Becker
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
June 30, 2023

@Duc Anh Le as promised I tried several things and came up with a solution supported by the app JMWE.

My workflow uses sample statuses, please don't mind the wording. Key is that there is a status in between the two approvals. This one will always be auto transitioned over, but we need to have a step for handling of the device selection.

Glossary

Approver 1 = Approvers

VP = Budget Manager

Device = Selection

Workflow:

  1. Creating an issue leads into the first approval step, like yours. Nothing special here
  2. Approval leads to the "Under Review" status, but there are two post functions in this transition
    1. device is cheap (selection in (a,b)) --> transition to "In Progress"
    2. device is expensive (selection = c) --> transition to "Awating Approval" (2nd Approval step)

The 2nd Approval step has just the same simple logic as the first one, but with another user picker field, here Budget Manager

Here are some screenshots of the workflow and post functions. Hope this helps. Please feel free to ask again.

Screenshot 2023-06-30 at 13.35.13.pngScreenshot 2023-06-30 at 13.30.38.pngScreenshot 2023-06-30 at 13.30.27.png

Like • # people like this
Duc Anh Le
Contributor
June 30, 2023

Good morning @Kai Becker

Great solution and works as expected. Thank you so much! Have a wonderful weekend!

Like • # people like this
Kai Becker
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
June 30, 2023

You are welcome. I'm glad I helped!

1 vote
Parsa Shiva
Contributor
June 28, 2023

Hello @Duc Anh Le 

Have you tried using the Approval Path add-on?
This could simplify the process as it's quite easy to figure out, and it serves as a powerful tool for Jira/Confluence approvals. Approval Path for Jira

I hope that helps,
Cheers!

Duc Anh Le
Contributor
June 28, 2023

Hi @Parsa Shiva  - Thank you for the suggestion. I tried it but the Approval Path process is not showing in the customer portal. Maybe I missed something?

Like • John Funk likes this
Parsa Shiva
Contributor
June 29, 2023

@Duc Anh Le 

I see the problem, I think Approval Path does not currently support that feature but it's on the roadmap.

You can subscribe to the ticket to get notified once it's implemented: Support portal - approval from client

Like • # people like this
Rajeev John June 14, 2024

Hi @Parsa Shiva ,

 

How far have you come on the roadmap for -- "Approval Path does not currently support that feature but it's on the roadmap" -- this is from your comment above.

Many thanks

 

Rajeev

0 votes
Duc Anh Le
Contributor
June 27, 2023

Removed

Suggest an answer

Log in or Sign up to answer
DEPLOYMENT TYPE
CLOUD
PRODUCT PLAN
FREE
PERMISSIONS LEVEL
Product Admin
TAGS
AUG Leaders

Atlassian Community Events