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Approver optional questions get inserted anywhere in the answered questions

I am seeing a behavior with optional approver questions and wondering if this is as designed.  We have catalog items with question templates.  The questions are set up as requester and required.  This is working as expected and we see those on the answered questions tab.
 
I have approver templates set up and have workflow with multi-level approvals.  Each of the approval levels have their own approver template with optional questions.  These are set at approver, item specific, optional and they show up on the unanswered questions tab as expected.
 
The issue is when the approver completes one or more of the optional questions and saves, the approver questions go to the answered tab, however, they appear  randomly in the middle of the requester questions.  I was expecting that the questions would show below all of the answered requester questions but that is not what is happening and it is causing issues with a sql report I wrote that uses the WD_ResponseQuestionAuditTrail table to filter and pivot the data that the requester had answered.

Has anyone else experienced this with the answered questions and found a workaround?

(1) Solution

I haven't had a lot of customer use cases that required approver questions, but when I have used them, I've certainly seen some "interesting" behaviors.  I can't say that I've specifically run across the behavior you're describing, but again, that's probably because I don't use approver questions that often, and when I have, I either didn't use them in combination with requester questions or I only had a single requester question and a single approver question (so no way to intermingle them on the Answered Questions tab).

My guess is that this is "As Designed by Omission".  In other words there likely wasn't a requirement specification for the particular behavior, but the code is working as implemented (perhaps sorting all questions together alphabetically or based on question order number in the database?).  To change the UI behavior would almost certainly require a code change by Product Engineering, so if you haven't already submitted a support case, I'd suggest you do so.  As for the SQL report and a potential workaround, I'm not clear how the UI display would impact a SQL report, but if you can provide further information, I'd be happy to take a quick look and see if I can help with a workaround.  Please send me a private message that includes the contents of your WD_ResponseQuestionAuditTrail table, as well as the SQL query you're using, the expected output, and the actual output.

Anything expressed here is my own view and not necessarily that of my employer, Flexera. If my reply answers a question you have raised, please click "ACCEPT AS SOLUTION".

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(2) Replies

I haven't had a lot of customer use cases that required approver questions, but when I have used them, I've certainly seen some "interesting" behaviors.  I can't say that I've specifically run across the behavior you're describing, but again, that's probably because I don't use approver questions that often, and when I have, I either didn't use them in combination with requester questions or I only had a single requester question and a single approver question (so no way to intermingle them on the Answered Questions tab).

My guess is that this is "As Designed by Omission".  In other words there likely wasn't a requirement specification for the particular behavior, but the code is working as implemented (perhaps sorting all questions together alphabetically or based on question order number in the database?).  To change the UI behavior would almost certainly require a code change by Product Engineering, so if you haven't already submitted a support case, I'd suggest you do so.  As for the SQL report and a potential workaround, I'm not clear how the UI display would impact a SQL report, but if you can provide further information, I'd be happy to take a quick look and see if I can help with a workaround.  Please send me a private message that includes the contents of your WD_ResponseQuestionAuditTrail table, as well as the SQL query you're using, the expected output, and the actual output.

Anything expressed here is my own view and not necessarily that of my employer, Flexera. If my reply answers a question you have raised, please click "ACCEPT AS SOLUTION".

I figured it might be as designed.  I originally had the approver questions in the Question Template on the catalog items and had them at the bottom of the required requester questions and that worked when they were answered, but the approvers complained because it was hard to find their specific questions on the unanswered question tab.  My approvals have 7 levels because we are using App Portal as way for users to request software not packaged in App Portal and it runs through a series of users by level (business analyst, cyber security, architects etc) before it can be packaged and placed in App Portal for the environment.

I put in a ticket for an enhancement in the case its as designed 🙂