Approval Workflow: Record Name of Person Who Approved

scottreiter

When a approval request goes to multiple people, is there a way to record into a column the person who did the approval (e.g. Approved By column). I can see out who did the approval by reviewing the 'View Cell History' on the column that has the approval status; however, I would like to put the Approver name into a field that can be reported on/ has better transparency to more sheet users.

Andrée Starå

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/109126/approval-workflow-record-name-of-person-who-approved

Hi,

I hope you're well and safe!

You could store the name from modified when the change happens with something like the below or use a Workflow that checks who it is and stores it (only feasible if you don't have too many approvers).

Make sense?

Please have a look at my post below with a method I developed.

More info: 

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/68589/lock-or-store-date-value-solution-without-using-zapier

Would any of those options work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe, and have a fantastic weekend!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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scottreiter

@Andrée Starå

Thank you for your response. We have a multi step approver process (Approver #1 then kicks off approval request to Approver #2 ..then to Approver #3). So I think that approach would get very messy very fast ..or not possible since it would be hard to match it to a unique row in the parallel sheet.

If this isnt available natively in Smartsheet, seems like it should be a feature idea request. The approval workflow should create a column and record who it was Approved By ..in the same way that it creates a column for the Approval status. Smartsheet knows who did the approval ..its in the History. It just needs to be exposed better for auditing and transparency purposes.

Gia Thinh

Hi scottreiter,

I just want to further clarify what Andree means about his solution of storing the name from "Modified By" collumn.

When the manager approved/declined, his/her name will be stored in Modified By column automatically by system, then we will check this column to store their name in Approved By column by assign people action of the workflow.

Have a look at below screenshots:

lauren_h

This doesn't work for me because when I set up my approval the approvers are either approving or declining the project via notification. They don't have edit permissions on the sheet. So the user ends up being "automation@smartsheet.com" so I can't do a condition for the approvers or find who I'm looking for in the last modified by.

jvanwho

I wanted to re-open this discussion because I'm having a similar issue. We have a multi-step approver process, and one of the approvals can be made by any of about 4-5 individuals (the list of approvers is set and doesn't change often). I want to capture which user approved the request. I used the solution above from @Gia Thinh, but Smartsheet is not able to complete the "assign" step based on the "modified by" user before automation@smartsheet.com makes the next automated change, so the approver's email address is not captured. Is there a way to sequence the automations to help make sure the "assign" step is completed before automation makes the next update?

Alternatively, has anyone found another solution to this issue? I have added my vote to the feature request but for now I'm trying to find a workaround :) @Andrée Starå , are you still willing to share your solution to store date or value?

Thanks everyone!

Andrée Starå

Hi @jvanwho

I hope you're well and safe!

Yes, I'd be happy to share an example. 

Please email me at andree@workbold.com, and I'll share it with you.

I hope that helps!

Be safe, and have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

✅Did my post(s) help or answer your question or solve your problem? Please support the Community by marking it Insightful/Vote Up, Awesome, or/and as the accepted answer. It will make it easier for others to find a solution or help to answer!

eweitz

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/422053#Comment_422053

Literally this. It is shocking to me this does not exist. Such a common use case for an approval workflow to know WHO approved it. Not sure why this is so hard for them to implement or see. I've seen like 20 different threads on this exact same thing but none have been upvoted enough somehow.