Add Comments to Approval Workflow

Lin K.

Include a comments section to the current approval workflow (currently only approve or decline), this would be helpful when an approver has a question or comment about a pending approval.

Genevieve P.

Hi @Lin K.

This is already available!

You can select "A comment" as one of the specific fields sent out with an Approval Request:

This then allows the approver to add a comment at the same time as Approving or Declining:

Note that this is only for the Conversations area of a Smartsheet sheet. If you want approvers to be able to fill out other columns, then I would suggest using an Update Request instead.

Cheers,

Genevieve

Alex@

Hi @Genevieve P.

Thanks for sharing, I am also having the same issue as Lin. Followed the steps as above using the 'Specific Fields' option and pulling a 'Comments' field through from my sheet; on Approval however user is unable to view the 'Comments' as field locked - have I missed something?

Thanks,

Alex

Genevieve P.

Hi @Alex@

Are you pulling through a column that you created and titled "Comments", or are you selecting the field "A comment" in the workflow as in my screen capture above?

Alex@

Hi @Genevieve P.

Am pulling a column that I created titled 'Comments'. Trialled again and can now see there is a generic 'A comment' field as default

Thanks for the support

Genevieve P.

No problem! 🙂

Debra L

@Genevieve P. I have the same challenge, tried out the 'a comment' workaround and would prefer to use the approval workflow; however, is there a way to modify the automated message to include the data from the 'a comment' field without the additional info above it, including a link to the master sheet (see highlighted in yellow)...so it looks cleaner to the requestor?

Genevieve P.

Hey @Debra L

The only way to exclude the Sheet Link is to send the alert as Message Only (without any fields).

Debra L

Thanks Genevieve---I am going to keep playing with it. I think that this is one feature that could use minor enhancements, specifically when it comes to allowing approvers to respond to reasons for declining a request, besides what is currently available. Regards, Debra.

ktcran

@Genevieve P. - currently adding this feature to my approval workflows. Does the approver have to have "commenter" access to the sheet in order to add their comments on the approval?

Genevieve P.

Hi @ktcran

Great question!

No - the Approver doesn't need any permissions on the underlying sheet in order to "Approve", "Reject", and add a comment in an Approval Request automated email. 🙂

Chris M.

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/397440#Comment_397440

Running into this same issue. Would like to hide the link to the sheet since most people shouldn't have access but there is no option to show the comment from the approver without including the link to the sheet. And it doesn't appear to be any way to include a writeable field for the approver to put a comment in with other than the "a comment" option. Bummer

Genevieve P.

Hi @Chris M.
To clarify, even if the sheet link shows in the email, only users who are shared to the sheet can click on the link and view content. Otherwise the URL will show a page identifying that the person receiving the email does not have access to the sheet (but they can submit the comment in the request).

Cheers,
Genevieve

Chris M.

Thanks for the quick response @Genevieve P. ! Yes you are correct about that behavior. The problem is people keep sending requests to access the sheet now instead. Would rather just leave it out altogether. I will submit an enhancement request for this. Thanks