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Multiple approval workflows on checkout

Is it possible for an application item, when requested, to go through more than one approval workflows after the request has been submitted.

The case for this would be a requester completes a questionnaire. The main question has a check box. Each check box requirement will need a different approval workflow.

So if a requester chooses one, only one workflow will be used, if they choose two approval workflows would be required before the request was complete.

I will test myself – but just wanted to check if this is possible and if anyone has set something up like this before?

(2) Solutions

You can associate more than one workflow with a catalog item, but only one workflow will ever be executed.  App Broker will evaluate the conditions associated with the workflows, and the first one where the conditions evaluate to true will be the one applied to the request (even if other workflows would also evaluate to true).

Having said that, you can have a single workflow with question conditions on the individual steps.  In your scenario, you would have multiple steps, each with a question condition matching a different value.  I don't recall for sure if you can use check box questions, but if not, you could probably structure your question template a little differently with multiple radio button questions.  For each step where the condition evaluates to true, that step would be included in the workflow.  For this case, you probably want to use the "Pool Within Level" workflow type.  The down side to this approach is that the approvals will not be done in parallel.  They will be done in the order the steps appear in the workflow.

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".

View solution in original post

I have something similar using a drop-down and/or radio button list, not sure how a check box would work.  I have one workflow with multiple user groups using Pool within Level. You can't send to two different workflows but if you use the questions with either yes/no or some other value you can set your workflow up on the approval level itself to take a path. Here's how it works in my environment.

Question 1 has values A, B and C.  On my approval workflow I have a question condition on Level 1 for A, Level 2 for B and Level 3 for C. The question condition has to be on the level and not on the workflow itself.

During the checkout process depending on how the user answers question 1, the level with the answer is selected and the other two levels are ignored.  The workflow then follows any other approvals down the line.  You could set up multiple drop-down or radio button questions and do the same with the other levels.  Takes a bit of configuration but it works in my environment if you have multiple question/answers.  Here's a sample setup

 

View solution in original post

(4) Replies

You can associate more than one workflow with a catalog item, but only one workflow will ever be executed.  App Broker will evaluate the conditions associated with the workflows, and the first one where the conditions evaluate to true will be the one applied to the request (even if other workflows would also evaluate to true).

Having said that, you can have a single workflow with question conditions on the individual steps.  In your scenario, you would have multiple steps, each with a question condition matching a different value.  I don't recall for sure if you can use check box questions, but if not, you could probably structure your question template a little differently with multiple radio button questions.  For each step where the condition evaluates to true, that step would be included in the workflow.  For this case, you probably want to use the "Pool Within Level" workflow type.  The down side to this approach is that the approvals will not be done in parallel.  They will be done in the order the steps appear in the workflow.

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".

Cheers Jim. As always, thanks for that info.

I have something similar using a drop-down and/or radio button list, not sure how a check box would work.  I have one workflow with multiple user groups using Pool within Level. You can't send to two different workflows but if you use the questions with either yes/no or some other value you can set your workflow up on the approval level itself to take a path. Here's how it works in my environment.

Question 1 has values A, B and C.  On my approval workflow I have a question condition on Level 1 for A, Level 2 for B and Level 3 for C. The question condition has to be on the level and not on the workflow itself.

During the checkout process depending on how the user answers question 1, the level with the answer is selected and the other two levels are ignored.  The workflow then follows any other approvals down the line.  You could set up multiple drop-down or radio button questions and do the same with the other levels.  Takes a bit of configuration but it works in my environment if you have multiple question/answers.  Here's a sample setup

 

That's fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing 🙂