Approval with multiple approvers

  • 24 August 2017
  • 8 replies
  • 4 views

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Hi

I'm totally new here. We have an approval-workflow in SharePoint 2013 with 1-5 approvers. After all of them approved or rejected the application, it should go to a "master approver" who sees all the comments and approvements of the approvers before. On this basis he can approve or reject the application. Our Problem is, that there is no option that everyne has to approve. As soon there is a majority, the task goes on and the other approvers get a "not required" mail. Has anybody an idea how we could solve this?

I hope it's clear, what the workflow should do. Otherwise please ask...

Many Thanks

Vico


8 replies

Userlevel 5
Badge +13

So basically, there are a number of approvers, at least 1 and up to 5 (plus the master approver). You want to send an email to all of the original approvers at once to look at the information, and approve or decline it. If at least 3 (in the case of 5 approvers) approve it, the process moves forward and the master approver now is set up to approve. The other 2 approvers receive a "it's already approved by a majority" email.

  • Does the number of approvers vary?
  • Do you want it parallel (like I laid out) or serial?
  • What happens if an approver declines?
  • Should the approvers be able to see the status/comments of the other approvers?
  • Are you in Office 365 or Sharepoint 2013/2016?
  • Do you also use Nintex Forms?
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Hi Courtney

Thanks for your answer. To your questions:

  • Does the number of approvers vary? Yes
  • Do you want it parallel (like I laid out) or serial? parallel
  • What happens if an approver declines? Nothing should happen. Everybod should approve or decline first. (I just added a screenshot of the actual workflow) 
  • Should the approvers be able to see the status/comments of the other approvers? The master approver should see it.
  • Are you in Office 365 or Sharepoint 2013/2016? SharePoint 2013
  • Do you also use Nintex Forms? No

Workflow

Userlevel 5
Badge +13

Oh! I got your requirements backwards; it currently only waits for a majority but you want it to wait for all. In your flexitask, you should have an "Behavior" section, there are options there for when you want to progress. Check out the documentation here: http://help.nintex.com/en-US/nintex2013/help/#Workflow/RootCategory/Actions/Nintex.Workflow.FlexiTask.htm  for more info on what each option does!

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The Problem is, none of the behaviour matches our requirements. Do you have any idea for a Workaround?

Thanks

Vico

Userlevel 5
Badge +13

Hmm, check out this thread:  

Apparently, there is not a way to wait for all approvers to respond unless you assign individual tasks, which can get tricky when you have a variable number of approvers, but is doable. 

Userlevel 5
Badge +14

what about design like this?

if 5 approvers  is your upper bound on number of approvers, you could use parallel action with 5 branches, within each branch assign a task to one of those 5 approvers.

to ensure the task is assigned only to defined approver, you could first check it with run-if.

parallel action ensures, that workflow will not proceed until all the parallel branches and finished, so in your case until all of the 5 approvers respond.

then finally assign task to master approver.

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Hi Marian

Thanks for your answer. That could actually really solve my Problem. I'll try it on monday and give you Feedback.

Thanks

Vico

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Hi Marian

Thanks for your help. It'sworking...!

Have a nice week.

Vico

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