Unable to setup an approval step using the standard "Approvers" field in Jira

[Dave Sohnchen]

I'm trying to setup an approval step in my workflow using the standard "Approvers" field the comes out of the box in Jira but when I go to the approval flow, that field is not present for me to select. When I type it in and hit enter, it says the field already exists. 

I'm currently using a Jira Cloud premium trial which I intend to purchase so I'm not sure if that's issue but I'd like to prove out my workflow first. 

Here is my workflow and what I see on the approval flow editor. The only "approver field" i see is a dummy one that I created but I have automations to set the "Approver" field based on criteria so I'd like to use the out of box field. 

Can someone help? 

[John Funk]

Hi Dave - Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

I assume that this is a Team-managed project - is that correct? If so, not all standard fields are available, you will need to create a new field as you are doing in your screenshots. This will be a field unique to this individual Team-managed project. 

[Dave Sohnchen]

Thanks for the info John. 

Yes, I do have a team-managed project. I'll try to set it up using the custom field and see how it goes.

Cheers.

[Dave Sohnchen]

Hi John,

The Approvers_2 field was created through the Approval setup workflow but now when I try to add it to the issue, it just displays blank details and when I save my issue type the field is then removed. 

I tried to create a custom field called "Approvers_3" as you can see in the screenshots above. However, when I try to use that field in the approval workflow, it's not available. Only the previous Approvers_2 shows in the dropdown. 

Any other suggestions? 

[John Funk]

Those look like they are two different types of fields. The Approvers_3 might not be a type that is compatible with the Approval process. I assume it needs to be a multi-user picker field. 

[Dave Sohnchen]

Got it. I think what I'm running into is "Approvers_2" was created from the Approvals workflow and "Approvers_3" was created as a custom field but you're correct, I did it as a single user field. I did create a new multi-user custom field but I still can't see it in the approval workflow setup. 

Am I to assume that only fields created through the Approvals setup workflow are allowed to be used? 

What I'm trying to do is set the appropriate approver based on a Line of Business custom field. There are different LOB managers that are needed for approvals so I'm trying to set an automation rule that if an issue has Line of Business set to "a", assign to approver 1 and if an issue has Line of Business set to "b" assign to approver 2. 

Is that not possible when setting up "Approvals"? 

If not, I'll just assign the issue to users and no use the approvals workflow at all. 

[John Funk]

This is a really scaled down version of the robust capabilities for Approvals in Jira Service Management. Is it possible to use that product for your intake and approvals? And then clone the resulting issue into a Software or Business project? 

Typically what I do in you case is have different transitions to the Approval status or based on a value in the issue, when the issue transitions to the Approvals status, I fire an automation rule that populates the field with different values based on some IF/ELSE Conditions logic.