Creating Group Approvals in a Workflow Via Script Not Behaving Properly

[jmiskey]

Typically, we use the Group Approval action in the Workflow to create group approvals.  However, we have Catalog Items where users can select more than one "role" to request, and each "role" has its own Approval Group, which is maintained by a Role Data Dictionary table.  So we have a Run Script action, which loops through all the Roles they have selected, and creates a separate Group Approval for each one.  The code looks something like this:

//capture roles selected from variable
var roleList = current.variables.role.toString();

//loop through all roles
var roleArray = roleList.split(',');
for (var i = 0; i < roleArray.length; i++) {
	var rol = roleArray[i];
	var gr = new GlideRecord('u_tango_roles');
	gr.addQuery('sys_id', rol);
	gr.query();
	
	//create group approvals
	with (gr.next()){
		if (gr.u_approval_needed == true){
			var appGrp = gr.u_role_approver;
			var role_name = gr.u_role_name;

			//create group approval
			var grApproval = new GlideRecord('sysapproval_group');
			grApproval.initialize();
			grApproval.parent = current.sys_id; 
			grApproval.assignment_group = appGrp;   
			grApproval.approval = 'requested';
			grApproval.wait_for='any';  //wait for anyone to approve
			grApproval.insert();
			
			//add approval types to approver approval records
			var apprv = new GlideRecord("sysapproval_approver");
			apprv.addQuery("sysapproval", "=", current.sys_id);
			apprv.addQuery("state", "=", 'requested');
			apprv.addQuery("u_approval_type", "=", "");
			apprv.query();
			while (apprv.next()) {
				apprv.u_approval_type = 'Tango: ' + role_name + ' Approval';
				apprv.update();
			}
		}
	}
}

So, this script does correctly create the Group Approval records, and the accompanying Approver Approval records, for each member in the groups. 

It does what it is supposed to, except for one big thing.  Even though we have the "Wait For" field set to "any" (so that once one person approves or rejects an approval, all other approval records created for that particular approval are deemed unnecessary), it is not working properly.  If one person approves a particular approval, all the other persons in that group still have their individual approval records showing as "Requested" instead of "No Longer Required".

I compared these approvals created by scripts against one that are created by the Group Approval action (and behave like they should), and could not find any differences.  In both cases, the following values on the Group Approval record are the same:

- Wait for: Anyone to approve

- Upon approval: Proceed to next task

- Upon reject: Cancel all future tasks

What am I doing wrong?  Am I missing some sort of setting?

How do I get the Group Approval (accompanying user approval records created) created by a Run Script action to behave in the same manner as one created with the Group Apprval action?

Thanks

[jmiskey]

I would recommend adding some logging statements into your code and return values like "badgeList", "i", "badge", and "approval" to see if you can tell where the issues occur.  Then you will be able to confirm all the values, and if it is actually looping through them all or not.

[elphilli]

Thanks! I have come to realize that the approval group only creates an approval for the first location that is selected. Ignores the rest.

[jmiskey]

Were you able to determine why?

Many times, by logging different values at various points in your code, you can see what is going on.  It usually is because some piece is not working the way you think it is (due to an error or maybe not quite understanding how certain things work in ServiceNow).  This often helps me pinpoint where the problem is occurring.

[elphilli]

No, I'm still investigating. But I believe it has to do with the code below:

while (gr.next()) {
        var approval = gr.u_approval_groups;
        answer.push(approval.toString());

 It's only capturing the first selected location and generates a group approval. Other locations are getting ignored.

[jmiskey]

Right, if you add those other logging statements I suggested, you should be able to see if there are actually multiple values in the list you are trying to loop through, and what happens to each step in the loop (if you have logging statements both inside and outside of the loop).