Approval Workflow to Multiple Persons

MarcinP · 05/22/22

@Dennis Wierzbicki - Hi, have you sorted out your issue?

I have a 10 approval workflows that covers approval requests (for purchasing broad list of items) from different departments and depends on department, approval request has to be sent to the relevant manager for initial approval. Then, depends on decision, if approved it has to be yet approved by top manager, if declined - only notification is sent to the originator.

Each initial approval request is addressed to different manager, but the answer is stored in one, common column for all answers. Also, the top manager's decision is stored in single column, obviously.

Each workflow is basically a copy of the other workflows. The only difference is the manager's contact.

The problem is, that automation keeps sending multiple notifications to all originators rather than for only this one that really put new request into the system...

For example:

I enter new purchase request, system sends new request to dept's manager. If it's approved, systems sends another request to the top manager and at this point everything works ok, but when top manager approves the request, system sends notifications to all workflows, instead to the relevant one...

A a result I am getting 10 separated notifications with information at the bottom of each one: You are receiving this notification because you are subscribed to a workflow 1.

And the other one: You are receiving this notification because you are subscribed to a workflow 1.

And so on... to 10.

Genevieve P. · 05/23/22

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/330598#Comment_330598

Hi @MarcinP

The reason you're seeing duplicate notifications is because all 10 workflows are using the same Top Manager approval column.

This means that when that Top Manager Approval changes, it triggers the second half of all of those workflows (regardless of what triggered the first half). See: Approval workflow behavior

I would suggest using a Condition Block after your Top Manager Approval before the Alert so it only sends out to the relevant dept manager. See: Condition Blocks: Filter What Your Automated Workflows Send

Cheers,

Genevieve

ellie111 · 11/22/24

Hi, I am also trying to find a way to send one approval concurrently to multiple approvers and collect all of their responses. Right now, I have a separate sheet that I am copying all responses to, counting the responses that match the name of the project, and when that count is greater than or equal to the count of approval contacts in the cell, I am marking a check box that all Approvals are received.

The issue I have run into is only the first person to view the approval can click approve or deny, everyone else it just says "Save". Did we ever discover a way for multiple people to approve the same request in a linear way? Or any other solution would also be appreciated. Also, if one person declines, we have to start all over again with approvals so documenting those is less important than just making sure everyone responded

Approval Workflow to Multiple Persons

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