Previous Approver dropped on returned Change Request

[jeffry]

Hi everyone! I'm looking to learn more about ServiceNow and know the community has wealth of knowledge. Just wanted to seek help on an issue I am facing. I created a normal change request having L1 and L2 group approvers. I tested it by initially approving the request at L1 (impersonate a member in L1 approvers), then rejecting it at L2 (impersonate a member in L2 approvers). When I sent it back through for approval, The name of the L1 person, who initially approved the normal change request was dropped off the list. Seen two (2) flows was triggered during this process: 'Change - Normal - Authorize' and 'Change - Normal - Assess'. I'm not very familiar with the Change flow, so I'd really appreciate your insights on my situation. Any advice would be incredibly helpful - Thanks!

[SumanthDosapati]

@jeffry 

'Change - Normal - Assess' flow will trigger when the state of the Change Request becomes Assess. Usually this is when 'Request Approval' button is clicked on new state and first level of approval triggers.

'Change - Normal - Authorize' flow will trigger when the state of the Change request becomes Authorize. Usually this is when the first level of approval is approved in assess state and then the state became Authorize.

When a flow is rejected and requested for approval again, all the approvals should ideally trigger as it is without skipping anyone irrespective of who approved earlier.

Accept the solution and mark as helpful if it does, to benefit future readers.
Regards,
Sumanth

[SumanthDosapati]

@jeffry 

Did the above solution work? If yes, Accept the solution and mark as helpful to close the thread and benefit other readers.

Regards,
Sumanth

[MC30]

Hi Jeffry,

When you resubmit a Change Request for approval (after an L2 rejection), the system rebuilds the approval records by re-triggering the flows. This rebuild does not reuse the previous approval records unless explicitly designed to do so.
In your case:
L1 approved → approval recorded.
L2 rejected → state changed to require re-approval.
Change request is resubmitted.
Flows get re-triggered (especially Change - Normal - Authorize).
New approval records are generated, and the prior L1 approver’s name is dropped, unless your flow logic preserves it.

Why Is the L1 Approver Dropped?
By default, the Flow Designer flows recreate the approval records based on current conditions (e.g., group membership at runtime). If your flow uses "Create Approvals for Group Members" or "Generate approvals from scratch", it will not preserve any previously approved users.
This means:
If your flow logic is not set up to skip L1 (if previously approved), it will remove or override the L1 approval record.
If it uses a Join Condition (like all L1 + all L2), and L2 is rejected, the process starts fresh.

How to Fix or Handle This
Check for Duplicate Flow Execution
Ensure both "Change - Normal - Assess" and "Change - Normal - Authorize" aren't competing to create the same approvals. This can happen if both create approvals independently.
Go to Flow Designer > Executions, look up the Change Request number, and inspect what each flow is doing at runtime.
Ensure only one of them is responsible for generating group approvals, or use flags or conditions to control re-generation logic.

Suggested Test
Impersonate as L1, approve the Change.
Impersonate L2, reject it.
Before resubmitting:
Look at the sys_approval_approver table (/sys_approval_approver_list.do?sysparm_query=request=<your_change_sys_id>)
Check if L1 approval record is still there or has been deleted.
After resubmission, check if a new approval record is created, and what group/user it's assigned to.

If possible please provide the screenshots of the flow and approval part.

Please mark this as helpful.

Regards,

Madhuri