How do I get around approvers being on vacation in a workflow?

Stephen Finnie

Hi there,

We have just started using a simple workflow to approve capital investment projects in the business. The workflow submits each project justification through a hierarchy of approvers, dependant on the value of the project. The workflow has minimum of 7 approvers in the process for a given project to gain approval.

We are currently in a position where two senior approvers are on vacation, and wondered if there is a way of automating the workflow to account for approvers being on vacation so that projects do not end up stalling whilst waiting for approvers to return from their vacations. Ideally, I'd like for the workflow to skip an approver if they are on vacation and go directly to the next approver on the workflow process.

I'd appreciate any thoughts on how to do this in a simple manner.

Thanks for your suggestions in advance,

Stephen

Andrée Starå

Hi Stephen,

Is there any place in Smartsheet where you register who's on vacation?

Can you describe your process in more detail and maybe share the sheet(s) or some screenshots? (Delete/replace any confidential/sensitive information before sharing) That would make it easier to help. (share too, andree@getdone.se)

Hope that helps!

Have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå

Workflow Consultant @ Get Done Consulting

Stephen Finnie

Hi Andrée,

Thanks for your quick response.

I've attached a flowchart showing the workflow and a couple of screen grabs of the actual workflow in smartsheet. (hope this helps)

We do not currently have a smartsheet where we register vacations. Assuming if we did we could just put a condition on the approval side to say that if Person A is on holiday today and the out put is that it links into the next approver on the workflow?

Regards,

Stephen

Andrée Starå

Happy to help!

Is it only this Workflow or many others as well?

If you add a vacation sheet, then we could add a helper column that would show that the person is on vacation and that it should continue to the next person in the Workflow but depending on how many Sheets/Workflows it might be simpler to update the Workflow when someone is on vacation

Make sense? What do you think?

Stephen Finnie

It's only this workflow and only this sheet for this given task.

Yesterday I built a vacation sheet that shows the next vacation for each of the approvers and then simply whether or not they are on holiday at the moment.

I understand the principle, would you then just use conditions in the single workflow to skip a stage, or would you have multiple workflows to run dependant on each approvers holiday status?

Thanks again,

Andrée Starå

You'd have to add a helper column to the sheet and then use that for the condition.

But...

I was waiting for the release of formulas in contact columns, and it's released now so you could have a formula in the contact column checking the vacation sheet and change the contact if they are on vacation.

Would that work?

Stephen Finnie

Yes that might work - I'll give it a go and see if I can get that to work.

Again, appreciate your help Andrée. I'll let you know if I get it to work or not!!

 

Andrée Starå

Excellent!

I'm always happy to help!

Stephen Finnie

Andrée,

I've had a go but to no avail. I've shared the holiday tracker and the approvals sheet with you. Can you take a look for me and see what you think?

https://app.smartsheet.com/sheets/g7j76mg3WrcPfrW768MwFhXv3XrmvxWR338QMMH1

https://app.smartsheet.com/sheets/rGVmX8cGwFprVMMrvvfQ3QWfH8HhHw3M6p2FHfp1

Andrée Starå

I'd be happy to!

I'll get back to you soon!