Is it possible to do multiple manual approvals for the same person?

[Shane J]

In my request workflows for Security, there is a step where manual approvals are created.   There are times when the same person needs to approve multiple things, so they require multiple approvals.   Since the Approvals only seem to be created via the 'Edit' option, there's no way to pick a person for multiple approvals (they're already in the list).

Is there a way around that?

If there is a way around that, will the workflow still identify the approval records properly?   i don't want to cause any problems with the workflow if a workaround for my issue is available.

[Uncle Rob]

Something doesn't sound right here.   Can you screenshot me adding approvals via the edit button?

Also, I generally control approval via workflow to avoid precisely this scenario.   You *know* the task will have multiple stages of approval... its just the manual processing makes it confusing when one user needs to authorize twice.   Some questions to consider:

1)   Why am I forcing one user to approve multiple "times" during a single task?   Is this an audit requirement?

2)   If those multiple approvals from a single user are audit requirements, why am I trusting manual generation vs workflow automation?

I've got the next 3 days open, so happy to help you deconstruct this and build out the best solution.   rob (at) thewhitespace (dot) io

[Shane J]

I don't disagree necessarily, but Security needs this setup to support their current process.   They have a separate table of approvers for everything they are aware of.   When they get in a request, they refer to that table for anything that is requested and create manual approvals as needed.   From an audit perspective, they need an approval per item requested - so just because Bob approves both Account A and Account B, it doesn't mean it's OK to seem him 1 approval for both.

This is what we get below when we hit the Edit button for Approvals.   There's no way to add someone who is already on the right-side.

[Shane J]

Did I scare you off Rob?  

[Uncle Rob]

Nope... was just afk for most of the day.
There's definitely something wonky here, and I'm having trouble articulating without seeing it.
When you see "EDIT" on a related list vs "NEW" you're usually either creating a custom many-to-many record or selecting from a list of records that pre-exist.
- creating a new many-to-many record doesn't seem to fit, since there's no reason it should prohibit a user over and over
- selecting from pre-existing records doesn't make sense because these are like... new approvals, right?