Issue with manual approvals on requested items

[Jamsta1912]

Hi all,

When I add a manual approval to a Requested Item, via the EDIT button on the Approvers related list, the approval record gets created but both the Approving and Approved for fields are blank. The Approver field is populated as expected, but of course without the task reference the approval just hangs orphaned in space. It happens with all RITMs / all approvers.

I cannot see a script or flow running at the time I create the approvers that may be causing this. There are also no weird scripts running on the actual list control record. Any thoughts on what may be causing this?

[Jamsta1912 · Accepted solution]

I reached out to ServiceNow Support. It turns out this is a known issue:

This issue is due to a known problem, PRB1973824. The permanent fix for this problem is included in Australia Patch 2 and Zurich Patch 10. For more details, please refer to the knowledge base article KB2815909.
https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB2815909

[Josh Pirozzi]

@Jamsta1912 - Thanks for sharing the known problem! A question I have is do you trigger an Approval Request from the Flow to ensure the Flow is paused while you manually update/trigger the RITM Approval Request? 

Thanks,

Josh

[Jamsta1912]

Hi Josh,

That is the "correct" way to do it! But in the case I'm working on, actually we don't do that, as the manual approval is not ALWAYS required. Possibly it's too "loose" a process ;). In any event, the users would still experience this issue.

[Josh Pirozzi]

Hi @Jamsta1912 ,

Understood and I've seen it before! 😉

I'm not sure if you could include this, or if it might impact the Request Flow too much, but could you include something on the RITM or add a 'Review Task' that needs to be updated before the Flow progresses forward? IE: 'Is an Approval Required?' (Yes/No)

Then, in the Flow, look up the RITM/SCTask followed by checking the value of the 'Is an Approval Required?'. And then, if the value = Yes, you can include an 'Approval Request' Flow Step.

[Jamsta1912]

Thanks Josh, that's a smart and simple idea. We may well want to implement something like that 🙂