Flow Designer Ask For Approval Action Skipped When Using Target User Manager as Approver

[vodnalar26]

Hi Team,

I am working on a custom Access Request table in ServiceNow.

Requirement

• Source User: Single User
• Target User: Single User
• Approval should be sent to the Target User's Manager.
• Once approved, roles should be copied from the Source User to the Target User.

Current Flow

1. Record Created
2. Ask For Approval
   • Approver = Target User → Manager
3. If Approved → Copy Roles
4. If Rejected → End Flow

Issue

The Ask For Approval action is not generating an approval request and the flow continues down the rejection path.

In the Flow Execution Details, I see:

Approval State = skipped

and in the Rules runtime value:

ApprovesAnyU[]

which seems to indicate that no approver was resolved.

Verification Done

• Target User field is a reference to sys_user.
• Target User record has a valid Manager populated.
• Ask For Approval is configured to use the Target User's Manager as the approver.

Questions

1. What causes an Ask For Approval action to return Approval State = skipped?
2. Does ApprovesAnyU[] indicate that the approver list is empty?
3. Is there a recommended way to pass a user's manager as an approver in Flow Designer?
4. Are there any known limitations when using reference field dot-walking (Target User → Manager) in Ask For Approval actions?

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Thank you!

[Mark Manders]

Set your flow to run as the system user. This could very well be the inability for the user to read the managers record and therefor skipping.
Also check on your cross-scope privileges. Your scope needs access to the users and the approval records.