How to successfully roll-back / reset manual approver approval records (change workflow)?

[jas101]

Hi guys, does anyone have any working solutions for how to roll-back manual approver approval records?

Detail:

As part of our revised change workflows we have a 'Manual Approver' activity stage within an approval co-ordinator because of the need to allow change requestors to potentially add manual approvers (as well as the group approver ones that are automatically added).

It's apparent that following a rejection, when approvals are rolled back although all the approval records are correctly reset to 'Requested' (when 'Request approval' is re-clicked), the requirement for the manual approvers to actually approve is not there as seen by the workflow showing that manual approval activity stage as blue i.e. satisfied in terms of progressing the workflow (all the others are green indicating they're waiting approval - see below screen-grab).

I have found that the only way to ensure the manual approvers are required is to manually remove the manual approvers, save, re-add them back and then manually set the manual approver approval records back to 'Requested'!

This seems so clunky right? As such am just wondering whether you have any suggestions (other than not using manual approvers which has been made clear to me this is not an option!) as to how I can make this whole process smoother for change owners who have manual approvers added to their changes.

Thanks in advance.

[Mark Stanger]

Can you move your 'Manual approvals' activity out of the Approval coordinator so that it happens right after the approval coordinator activity?

[jas101]

OK, so the issue with that is I need the Manual approvers (MA) to get the approval requests at same time as the other approvers. So subsequently I have taken the MAs out the approval co-ordinator (AC) and then I did a 'Join' activity that both the MA and AC activities go into if 'Approved'... I'm not sure if this is the best way to handle this (?) but seems OK in terms of waiting for both before moving the workflow on.

So now in terms of rejection/reset, the good news is that 'Manual approvers' are going back to 'Requested' and moreover indeed are being required again as part of the workflow HOWEVER there is still the issue with the group AC approval records doing the same thing as described in last post i.e. majority are staying as they were prior and only 1 group of approval records is going back to 'Requested' and being required - and I don't understand why? Oh man. 

[Mark Stanger]

Honestly, the 'Approval coordinator' has caused me issues like this in the past so I really haven't tried to use it for anything since that time.  From the looks of your workflow though, you could move all of those group approval activities out of your coordinator and it should work.  If each (or most) of those group approval activities references a specific group anyway, you should be able to easily see the group reference in the Approvals related list at the bottom of your change form.  That's what I've always done and it should work just fine that way with a rollback.

[jas101]

Thanks Mark, I'm happy to try moving them out the approval co-ordinator - this was being used so they all the approvals get sent at the same time, and only move the workflow on once all approved (or rejected when any group/manual approver rejects) so this said, is the best way to 'tie-up' multiple approval activities to use a 'join' or other activity (maybe 'Wait for condition')?

*Just thought... the other issue with having them separate and not in an approval co-ordinator, is if for example one group approver rejects, how do we then ensure all other approvals (in other groups) / and manual approvers are set to 'No longer required'? Hopefully I'm thinking this is more complicated than it is. Thanks!

[Mark Stanger]

If I were you, I would just add all of the groups to a single 'Approval -> Group' activity.  Then you can just have one for your groups, and one for your manual approvals with a join to wait for them to come together before continuing.  The 'Approval -> Group' activity can check to see when a group rejects and decide what happens after that.