Ask for Approval in flow designer - How is manual approval intended to work?

[Jesper Slot]

Hi, 

We're running Paris, I'm building a scoped application, based on the task table, with a flow for the "lifecycle" of the requests.

We need several options for approval. It could be line manager or a list/group of predefined users, which is quite simple to set up in Flow Designer.

However for some requests we would also need the supporter to investigate before applying the approver, so in that scenario I would like to use the Ask for Approval with manual approvers option. I just can't see how this was intended to be used... which is where I call for your help.

I've been googling and searching the ServiceNow documentation, but haven't been able to see any examples or just a description of how this is intended to work.

So far I've set up the Ask for Approval action like this:

And normally, with the line manager or group of approvers, I'd follow up with a Wait for condition action on the approval state. But in this case, this do not work. 

Any knowledge on how to follow up on the Ask for Approval with manual approval? 

KR
Jesper S. Grumsen

[Jesper Slot]

Hi Joel,
I don't have access to that right now, but it was more or less a copy of the out-of-the-box UI Actions. Here is an example of the Resolve button for incidents - basically you have one function for client side and one for server side (make sure the "action name" and "onclick" (name like client side function) are updated accordingly): 

Here the values for server side state are wrapped in a script include, but you could just have the value set here instead: current.state = "6";

[mpmacconnell]

We got it working using the following script:

(function execute(inputs, outputs) {
var assigned_to = inputs.assignedTo;
var startdate = inputs.planned_start;
var enddate = inputs.planned_end;
var rfcnum = inputs.rfcNumber;
var rfcsysid = inputs.rfcsysid;
var currentdt = new GlideDateTime();
currentdt = startdate.getDisplayValue().split(' ')[0];

var location_temp = [];

var contact_loc = new GlideAggregate('u_rfc_contacts'); //GlideAggregate
contact_loc.addQuery('u_change_request', rfcsysid);
contact_loc.addQuery('u_key_card_request_needed', true);
contact_loc.addQuery('u_vendor', false);
contact_loc.groupBy('u_building');
contact_loc.query();
while (contact_loc.next()) {
location_temp.push(contact_loc.u_building.toString());
}
var location_arr = new ArrayUtil().unique(location_temp);

var hddcart = new Cart(generateId());
//for each location create a RITM for all users in each location
for (var i = 0; i < location_arr.length; i++) {
///query the user for the location and add it to user array
var userarray = [];
var suite = '';
var contact_user = new GlideRecord('u_rfc_contacts');
contact_user.addQuery('u_change_request', rfcsysid);
contact_user.addQuery('u_key_card_request_needed', true);
contact_user.addQuery('u_building', location_arr[i]);
contact_user.addQuery('u_vendor', false);
contact_user.query();
while (contact_user.next()) {
userarray.push(contact_user.u_name.toString()); //array of all users for that particular location.
suite = suite + " " + contact_user.u_suites_room;
}

var item = hddcart.addItem('c0bda6c2b41fa04044e97357a6539f7c');
hddcart.setVariable(item, 'scif_user_type', 'Employee');
hddcart.setVariable(item, 'sc5_confirmation_begin', 'true');
hddcart.setVariable(item, 'sc5_action_require', 'Exception to ID Keycard');
hddcart.setVariable(item, 'sc5_exception_mulitple', 'Yes');
hddcart.setVariable(item, 'sc5_exception_reason2', 'Changing Access Hours and Location');
hddcart.setVariable(item, 'sc5_scif_location_selection', location_arr[i]);
hddcart.setVariable(item, 'sc5_scif_exception_users', userarray.toString());
hddcart.setVariable(item, 'sc5_excep_access_hrs', 'Release Coordinator Access');
hddcart.setVariable(item, 'sc5_start_exception', startdate);
hddcart.setVariable(item, 'sc5_end_exception', enddate);
hddcart.setVariable(item, 'sc5_exception_reason', rfcnum + ' - Keycard request for change request.');
hddcart.setVariable(item, 'sc5_exception_suite', suite);
hddcart.setVariable(item, 'scif_start_date', currentdt);
hddcart.setVariable(item, 'scif_time', '06:00:00');
}
// set the requested for
var cartGR = hddcart.getCart();
cartGR.special_instructions = "Note: This is a system generated Keycard request for " + rfcnum;
cartGR.requested_for = assigned_to;

//cartGR.submitted_by = cartowner;
//cartGR.user = cartowner;
//cartGR.u_impacted_location = userloc;
//cartGR.sys_created_by = requestor;
//cartGR.opend_by = cartowner;
//cartGR.location = userloc;
cartGR.update();

//Place the order
var cartid = hddcart.placeOrder();

outputs.request = cartid;

var ritm = new GlideRecord("sc_req_item");
ritm.addQuery("request", cartid.sys_id);
ritm.query();
while (ritm.next()) {
ritm.contact_type = 'RFC keycard';
ritm.opened_by = assigned_to;
ritm.update();
}

var req = new GlideRecord("sc_request");
req.addQuery("sys_id", cartid.sys_id);
req.query();
if (req.next()) {
req.opened_by = assigned_to;
req.update();
}


// note this is an example.
function generateId() {
var text = "CART-";
var possible = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789";
for (var i = 0; i < 7; i++)
text += possible.charAt(Math.floor(Math.random() * possible.length));
return text;
}

})(inputs, outputs);

[Jesper Slot]

Hi, 

I don't see the connection to this topic, I fear you're replying to a wrong topic 🙂

Kr

Jesper