When Approvals are Declined/Rejected

aschneiderheinze1025

I have an approval workflow that includes three people:

1. Program Manager
2. Finance Representative
3. Payee

The Approval Status column for each is locked and updated automatically via the request approval workflow.

I am trying to figure out the best way to handle if any of them click "Reject" rather than "Approve". First, the workflow stops, so, for example, if Program Manager clicks "Reject", they provide a reason, and workflow stops (so Finance Representative doesn't receive anything).

The Contacts Manager oversees this sheet, but I am trying to automate as much as possible. The approval workflow begins when the value in a column is checked (and only if the Approval Status column for Program Manager is "Not Started").

Then, the workflow begins for the Finance Rep when the Approval Status for the Program Manager is "Approved". The same is true for the Payee (if the Approval Status for the Finance Rep is "Approved"), which includes generating a PDF contract now that the Program Manager and Finance Rep have approved the terms of the contract..

If anyone Rejects, my first step is to alert the Contracts Manager. It is possible, for example the Program Manager disagrees with one of the terms of the contract for the Payee, or the Finance Representative may thing the Payment Amount is incorrect.

The Payee, who receives the PDF contract attachment with the approval request, may reject saying one or more terms in the contract are unclear or incorrect.

For the Program Manager and Finance Rep, the Contracts Manager can modify the information in the sheet to reflect the new terms the Program Manager or Finance Rep may want to include. They all may decide, however, not to make any of the changes. The contact PDF stays the same, so the Payee would have to just approve it as is, or decline the employment opportunity altogether (in that case the Program Manager can cancel the payment request).

If the Payee rejects, the Contacts Manager can work with the Program Manager and Finance Rep to discuss, review, agree to update the terms, and Contacts Manager can make the edit in the sheet. Again, the Contacts Manager (in collaboration with the Program Manager and Finance Rep may or may not make any changes in the sheet to reflect the reasons the Payee rejected.)

However, for all three, I am not sure what will "trigger" restarting the entire workflow. If the Finance Rep rejects, for example, and any change is made in the terms, it needs to start the whole process over with the Program Manager.

If the Payee rejects, and terms are changed, the workflow starts over with the Program Manager, which will lead to generating a new contract.

QUESTION:

Since the Contracts Manager won't be able to manually change the Approval Status for the Program Manager, Finance Rep, or Payee, since those columns are locked, what else can trigger restarting the workflow (which would include resetting the Approval Statuses to "Not Started" and clearing the columns in which I recorded dates)?

This screenshot does not show the hidden columns that go with each Approval Status column, in which I record date the approval started for each, a reminder date, and date approval was received. Everything works perfectly, if they click "Approved". I am not sure how to handle resetting the workflow if they click "Reject", which may or may not involve the Contracts Manager (who would have Editor access to the sheet) making any changes in the terms of the contract.

prime_nathaniel

@aschneiderheinze1025 I think what you want are formula representations of the ACTUAL statuses that are calculated by the status of your dropdowns PLUS the hierachy logic to reset it when needed. That said, automation rules dont work great on formula triggers (for some weird reason this doesn't count as the same webhook as it does to the API).

As such your options are to use the API / Bridge OR you can split your data model up where things bounce around from sheet to sheet rather than 1 row on 1 sheet.