Multiple approvals in Jira Service Desk workflow

[Claire Upham]

We are interested in setting up multiple approvals in one workflow for a service desk project. We have about 5 statuses that need approvals configured. For each status, the approvers differ. The approvers are set by the service desk team, since the approvers vary by issue. I was wondering if there is a best practice for this. Would it be better to use the one Approvers user- picker field for the whole workflow, and just update this based on the status; or do we need a different user-picker custom field at each status configured for the approvals?

[Susan Hauth _Jira Queen_ · Accepted solution]

Hi Claire,

I have a similar situation and I thought about it as well.  In the end I found it cleaner and easier to manage to have 5 different groups for the 5 different statuses.  It's not that you couldn't do it with one, it will just be much simpler to implement and likely much simpler for your users to track.

Hope that helps

Susan

[Claire Upham]

That definitely helps. My initial concern with this was ending up having to create a ton of new user- picker custom fields for groups that need multiple approvals. But I'm thinking about just giving these fields generic names, i.e. Approvers 2, Approvers 3, etc, to avoid creating a field per unique status.

Thanks for your response!

Claire

[Susan Hauth _Jira Queen_]

Hi Claire,

Yes I have generic groups.  Approvers, Secondary Approvers, etc.

The end users never see these group names so it doesn't really matter.  They just see approval for (current status that needs approval).

If happy with answer please marked as resolved (Little checkmark)

Susan

[Claire Upham]

That certainly makes sense. I'll go ahead and mark this answered.

Thanks,

Claire