Approval Workflow Question
SCSM_Creator
Member IT Monkey ✭
If we have a Support Group that has 5 child groups and in those 5 child groups there are teams of people, how do we set a unanimous approval but where only 1 member from each group needs to approve/deny the request? Thanks!
Example Below:
Support Group Item
Child 1 - has 27 ppl - only 1 needs to approve/deny
Child 2 - has 4 ppl - only 1 needs to approve/deny
Child 3 - has 8 ppl - only 1 needs to approve/deny
Child 4 - has 4 ppl - only 1 needs to approve/deny
Child 5 - has 7 ppl - only 1 needs to approve/deny
All 5 child groups need to approve the request (in no particular order). If one group denies the request it will be marked as failed/denied and the workflow will stop.
Best Answers
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Options
Nicholas_Velich
Cireson Consultant Ninja IT Monkey ✭✭✭✭
My typical approach for groups within Review Activities is to have a Runbook Activity or PowerShell Activity examine the membership of that group, and add the users as Reviewers directly to the Review Activity just before it is time to vote. This approach allows for users to see their approvals in "My Work," and is more straightforward to determine who exactly you are waiting on.
With the above request, that would add some new challenges, as you would not have a way to track which folks are in which group after the users are added directly. I think this leaves you with two options:
1) Add each group directly as a reviewer to one single Review Activity, and set the approval threshold to 100% (or unanimous works too)
2) Create 5 different Review Activities (one for each group), place within a Parallel Activity, and set the approval threshold to 1% (once one person votes, the activity will move forward if approved)
Either way, if you want the functionality for "if one group denies the request it will be marked as failed," you will need to tick the box for "Has Veto" for each group and/or user.
Thanks,
Nick
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Options
Shane_White
Cireson Support Super IT Monkey ✭✭✭✭✭
I was just responding to this but Nick was too quick! I have just tried this in my lab by doing option 1 on Nick's list which seemed to work really well for me.
I have an RA Template with 4 different AD Groups of my Support Groups into the Reviewers.
Then I added this RA Template into an SR just so I could view it in a work item.
Each user in my lab only saw the RA in their work for the respective group they were a part of and when they approved it then it would only approve that one. So it would require all 4 to continue as you have requested above.
Since I also set it to unanimous, I declined the RA with one user and then the RA failed.
Thanks,
Shane.
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OptionsNicholas_Velich
Cireson Consultant Ninja IT Monkey ✭✭✭✭
That should work just fine. Activities at the top-level are sequential, meaning the first must complete before the second will kick-off, etc. You can think of Parallel Activities simply as a container, and everything within will kick-off at the same time; however, the Parallel Activity itself in the above example is still part of the top-level sequence, and must wait on the initial Review Activity before it will kick-off (and in turn, all of the activities within). Each activity in the above scenario is entirely independent, so nothing will transfer over from one to the other.
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Options
Adam_Dzyacky
Product Owner Contributor Monkey ✭✭✭✭✭
I should add that the functionality of Users Voting on Behalf of an AD Group exists in the freely available SMLets Exchange Connector. While this requires its own setup and is a complete replacement for the stock Microsoft Exchange connector (wider in scope than your immediate question) it allows users replying to those RA emails to vote on behalf of the group, further complimenting the ability to perform this in the Cireson Portal.
5
Answers
My typical approach for groups within Review Activities is to have a Runbook Activity or PowerShell Activity examine the membership of that group, and add the users as Reviewers directly to the Review Activity just before it is time to vote. This approach allows for users to see their approvals in "My Work," and is more straightforward to determine who exactly you are waiting on.
With the above request, that would add some new challenges, as you would not have a way to track which folks are in which group after the users are added directly. I think this leaves you with two options:
1) Add each group directly as a reviewer to one single Review Activity, and set the approval threshold to 100% (or unanimous works too)
2) Create 5 different Review Activities (one for each group), place within a Parallel Activity, and set the approval threshold to 1% (once one person votes, the activity will move forward if approved)
Either way, if you want the functionality for "if one group denies the request it will be marked as failed," you will need to tick the box for "Has Veto" for each group and/or user.
Thanks,
Nick
Hi @SCSM_Creator
I was just responding to this but Nick was too quick! I have just tried this in my lab by doing option 1 on Nick's list which seemed to work really well for me.
I have an RA Template with 4 different AD Groups of my Support Groups into the Reviewers.
Then I added this RA Template into an SR just so I could view it in a work item.
Each user in my lab only saw the RA in their work for the respective group they were a part of and when they approved it then it would only approve that one. So it would require all 4 to continue as you have requested above.
Since I also set it to unanimous, I declined the RA with one user and then the RA failed.
Thanks,
Shane.
Great! Thank you both for your answers! Now I have to throw a wrench into the plan. What if we have an initial review that needs to be approved before proceeding to the parallel activity?
Example below:
RA - Group A - has 8 ppl - needs to review process. Only 1 person needs to approve. If approved, goes to Parallel Activity below. If denied, employee who submitted the request will receive an email notification outlining why it was denied.
Parallel Activity:
RA - Group A (same as above, but will do a closer analysis) - will the approval in the initial review stick or do I need to do something here?
RA - Group B - has 27 ppl; only 1 needs to approve/deny
RA - Group C - has 4 ppl; only 1 needs to approve/deny
RA - Group D - has 4 ppl; only 1 needs to approve/deny
RA - Group E - has 7 ppl; only 1 needs to approve/deny
Thanks!
That should work just fine. Activities at the top-level are sequential, meaning the first must complete before the second will kick-off, etc. You can think of Parallel Activities simply as a container, and everything within will kick-off at the same time; however, the Parallel Activity itself in the above example is still part of the top-level sequence, and must wait on the initial Review Activity before it will kick-off (and in turn, all of the activities within). Each activity in the above scenario is entirely independent, so nothing will transfer over from one to the other.
I should add that the functionality of Users Voting on Behalf of an AD Group exists in the freely available SMLets Exchange Connector. While this requires its own setup and is a complete replacement for the stock Microsoft Exchange connector (wider in scope than your immediate question) it allows users replying to those RA emails to vote on behalf of the group, further complimenting the ability to perform this in the Cireson Portal.