What if an approval is conditional?

ktcran

The "Request an Approval" automation is so black and white, it's either approved or it's not. Our executives' approval is, more often than not, conditional. It's hardly ever a black-or-white answer. What is the most efficient way to record the approval response?

Option 1 (current): Request an Approval. If denied, send an update request asking for the reason why the request was denied. Then we have to manually remedy the issue and send out a new request for approval (can approval requests be sent manually? Or would it be a manual update request with the approval column as the field to update?).

Option 2: Send an update request as a way to gather approvals. This way, if it's approved or denied conditionally, the approver can type in the reason for denial in the same response. The problem with this is we have 150 fields in our sheet and the update request would need to be sent manually to customize which fields are included and which aren't per request. A big draw for us was being able to use automations to send out approval requests as soon as a form submission was received.

Is there another way or am I missing something obvious? Let me know!

Victoria_Indimar

Hi @ktcran - Have you tried collecting the comment at the time they approve/deny? Unfortunately, it's not something you can mark as required during approve/deny but it's pretty visible and you can include a note in the approval request that they should include a comment if denying.

As for resending an approval, you can use a helper column to manage "manually" retriggering an approval. I find this helpful in general because sometimes people might lose the approval request and ask for it to be resent.

Victoria_Indimar

Hi @ktcran - Have you tried collecting the comment at the time they approve/deny? Unfortunately, it's not something you can mark as required during approve/deny but it's pretty visible and you can include a note in the approval request that they should include a comment if denying.

As for resending an approval, you can use a helper column to manage "manually" retriggering an approval. I find this helpful in general because sometimes people might lose the approval request and ask for it to be resent.

ktcran

@Victoria_Indimar its really just as simple as including the comments?? Does the approver have to have Commenter access to the sheet?

Victoria_Indimar

@ktcran Yes! In the automation, you'll want to select specific fields and include Comment. Those will be captured in that row's Conversation. You can also leverage the "Latest Comment" column type to have it auto-populate in a separate field which can then be included in your Update Request if the request is denied.