Multiple Approvers from different user picker fields

[Sarah McConnell]

When creating a ticket I need to have approvers from different departments.  I have a user picker for each department.  How do I structure my workflow so that the approvers in each department are asked to approve simultaneously.  Can I merge the selection from each user picker into a custom field and then use this custom field for the approval?

[Tansu Akdeniz · Accepted solution]

Hi @Sarah McConnell 

Welcome to the community.

As you suggested, you can create a new multi-user custom field (Ex; Department Leads) and set the approvers in this field. Then configure the field that all approvers should approve to progress next step.

*Btw, you don't have to create a new field, you can also use default Approvers field. 

[Sarah McConnell]

as I create the ticket I would like to say that for this ticket person x from the security department should be the approver.  Person y from another department should be the operations approver etc.  So I want to present a drop down with the security team and another with the operations team and allow the person raising the ticket to say who from each team should be involved.  Then I would like a custom field that is set to the values from each of the seperate department fields and use this as the field that I say all of these people must approve to proceed to the next step. 

I hope that makes sense - the issue I'm having is how to get the information from each of the user pickers for each department and copy them into my new field?

I could be missing something really simple here - I'm not terribly familiar with service management!

[Tansu Akdeniz]

Ahh got it. You have different approvers in different fields and would like to merge them. So, you can create an automation and add these values to approvers. Then, use this approvers field in approval mechanism in workflow. Sample rule;

[Sarah McConnell]

Thank you!  This is perfect, I've got it working now :)

[Tansu Akdeniz]

You are welcome !!

[zendeskbyheather]

Strangely, this keeps overwriting my values instead of adding users to the Approvers field. I have it set up to add to existing values, but still not appending!!!

[Laura Bennett]

Hi @zendeskbyheather I have the same strange activity, did you manage to resolve it in your case? 

For anyone else encountering this behavior, I found this support page, which, even though for server and dc only, I was able to apply the solution to cloud and get my automation working:

Solution: To ensure that automation rules that edits the same field multiple times are working as expected, it is necessary to use the Re-fetch issue data action. This action will reload/refresh all the fields from the Jira issue, to ensure that the rule contains the most up to date value of all the Jira fields. Ultimately, this will ensure that the Copy From Issue variable is up to date.

The Re-fetch issue data action needs to be added right before the 2nd time, 3rd time, 4th time, etc... the same field is updated. It is not necessary to add it before the 1st time the field is updated.

[Karyna Tyrnavska _SaaSJet]

Hi, @Sarah McConnell !

To set a multi-level approval workflow try out Business Process Manager. My team has developed this plug-in to simplify business processes in Jira.

To achieve your goal with a custom field, use Conditional step

If you need some help to build approval workflow, you`re welcome to set a demo call with our product maanger