KB with Two Approvals - Group then Manager

Heidi Rawson1 · ‎08-15-2023

I have created a KB that requires two approvals to publish an article.
The two approvals are 1st level group, 2nd level manager of the group.
I set the KB up with Approval - Publish and listed the group managers there but I don't think that matters.
When I create Articles, I set them up to use Ownership Groups, as mandatory, with ownership group approval.
That is working well for the first approval. It is requiring the first group to approve at the peer level.
The issue I'm having is how to get the second level approval, the manager from the ownership group to get the next approval. Every group manager will have to approve after their group approval.
All the groups were added to the Type: Knowledge, and role: knowledge_group_member.
All the Managers are assigned as manager to their groups, and have been given the role knowledge_group_manager.

If anyone has done two-level approvals. I may be on the wrong track, or on the right track and missing a link! Appreciate the assistance.

EricG · ‎08-15-2023

Funny you should post this, I'm in the middle of updating the KB for just such a purpose.

A screenshot of your KB and Workflow would be helpful.

What I found was that i copied the OOB Approval Publish workflow, copied the Approval activity and updated accordingly. Here is why my KB looks like.

Here is the Workflows i set in the KB itself

I found that approvals for KB are different than normal Approvals and you need the Approve/Not Approved/Delete options

By copying the OOB WF, it is working form me on First and Second approvals.

View solution in original post

Dave Littlejohn · ‎08-15-2023

Agreeing with Eric. You can set up the workflow like:

For the first approval (Ownership Group), you can use the Field References (Red Square in following screenshot) under Groups to select the field Ownership Group field (highlighted in list in blue in following screenshot). Once selected, you should see $(ownership_group) listed for the Groups (circled in the following screenshot):

The second approval (Ownership Group's Manager) would be very similar except under Users's reference field, you would need to expand Ownership Group and select the Manager field (highlighted in list in blue in following screenshot). Once selected, you should see $(ownership_group.manager) listed for the Users (circled in the following screenshot):

I hope this helps!

View solution in original post

Dave Littlejohn · ‎08-16-2023

Do you mind sending a screenshot of how the 2nd approval is set up in the workflow?

Heidi Rawson1 · ‎08-16-2023

I have the workflow setup with Ownership Group or Ownership Group manager. But I noticed there is an additional approver script (not sure how I missed it):

answer = new KBWorkflow().getApprovers(current);

I removed that and it is now working as expected! Thank you all for your help, I really appreciate it very much!!