Approval with majority voting

[Brüse_ Bernhard]

Hi there.

I have to implement an approval workflow within Jira Service Desk. Nothing's easier than that - I thought. But then I realized: The decision in this particular process is determined by the majority!

The approval mechanism of Jira Service Desk declines every request after the first rejection. How can I keep the approval up and running after the first approver rejects in order to wait for further decisions? Then I think I will be able to store each decision within custom fields ... and with some tiny scripts I should be able to identify the majority decision (approval vs. rejection). 

Do you have any idea how to manage this? Thank you very much!

Regards,
Bernhard

[Dave Theodore [Coyote Creek Consulting]]

I've done something like this in the past using the arithmetic function fields in Jira Workflow Toolbox. You would need to do this outside of JSD's native approval function, though.  

Essentially what I did was to define a number of "approver" fields (3 in the case of this client.) Then I calculated how many fields had a value in them. I set up workflow transitions so that each approver had to approve independently, and captured their approvals as either a "0" (zero) or "1" (one.) I populated numeric fields with the values of "number of approvers" and "number of approvals" then used a Condition to subtract the approvals from the approvers. If the value was zero, it meant that all approvers were unanimous and in the value was non-zero, someone didn't approve. You could use a variation of that logic.

[Brüse_ Bernhard]

Hi Dave!

Thank's for your reply.

I created a prototype which is basically configured identically to your implementation: I have 4 approval steps in a row and Jira counts approvals and rejections. At this end, the resolution will be set automatically by comparing each amount of decisions. From my point of view the biggest "problem" is that the business have to determine an approval order who should decide first, second and so on.

On Monday I will demonstrate my solution to the stakeholder.

[Dave Theodore [Coyote Creek Consulting]]

Good luck! I hope your customers find the solution workable.

[Antonella Capalbo]

An easy way to implement that and have much more is https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1211763/herzum-approval?hosting=server&tab=overview.

[Brüse_ Bernhard]

Hi Antonella,

thank's for your reply.

In fact, I must implement this use case with Jira Service Desk due to to simple portal view. I found no hint in the documentation of Herzum that the app works with Jira Service Desk as well.

Cheers,
Bernhard