Multiple approvers with a twist

Joe Lederman

Hi, Newish Smart Sheet user here. I am building a workflow and want to figure out if it is possible to set up approvals the way that I would like to. Basically, when a user completes my form they select one or more categories from a preset list. Each category will be associated with an email address. If the user selects one category only, it's easy. We send an email to the email address associated with that category for approval and it is either approved or declined.

It gets complicated if they select multiple categories. The behavior which I would like to create is that if the user selects more than one category, an approval email goes out to the email address associated with each category. The twist is that I want each of the email addresses to be able to provide either approval or a decline AND most importantly, I want to set it up so that if ANY of the approvers approve the form, even if the other approvers all decline it, the form get's approved and moves to the approved section of my workflow.

The form should only move to the declined section of the workflow if ALL approvers decline it.

Anyone have any idea if this can be done and if so, how?

Paul Newcome

You would have to set up individual contact and approval columns for each approver. You can use an IF statement in each of the email columns to output the email address if that particular category was among the options selected.

From there I would set up a "Final Approval" column with a formula that will output "Approved" if at least one is approved and then build a separate workflow for whatever is supposed to happen when the row is approved.

Paul Newcome

You would have to set up individual contact and approval columns for each approver. You can use an IF statement in each of the email columns to output the email address if that particular category was among the options selected.

From there I would set up a "Final Approval" column with a formula that will output "Approved" if at least one is approved and then build a separate workflow for whatever is supposed to happen when the row is approved.

Joe Lederman

Darn it. That is exactly what I was afraid of. I was hoping that there was a better way. Oh well, thanks for confirming for me!