Can an Approver User be SWAPPED OUT / CHANGED On the Fly?

[GeoffreyOptumOp]

Is it valid to switch out one user for another in a sysapproval_approver record?

I have a Flow with a Flow Action of "Ask For Approval", that looks like this:

At runtime, a list of 4 approval records is generated, one for the manager ("Kendra"), and 3 for the "Chaps" Group members.  But say the manager is out of the office, so we Swap Out the user on that approval record with another user ("Tyler")...  Then what happens, for some reason, is when that new user Approves the record, all the OTHER records get set to "No Longer Required", which is NOT what we want, and which breaks the remainder of the flow.

Those other approvals are still required, because we want one approval from a manager, and one from a member of that "Chaps" group.

So it seems like the Flow Action is doing the wrong thing.  But maybe you can't change out approver users like we are.  Can you?

Thanks.

[Allen Andreas]

Hi,

It appears that changing the approver is breaking the rule requirement you've set.

Obviously, it's best to use the delegate system and so if the manager did not set that and is out of office, if there's an understood company policy that 'x' person (their manager or admin or whatever) can approve, then the help desk team could have set the delegate manually. The notification wouldn't go out again, but the delegate should be able to navigate to "My Approvals" and now see the record and that would count as an approval on behalf of "Kendra".

This way you aren't breaking records and changing names and such.

So you "can" change the approver on the fly, using the method you did, but obviously with an "AND" condition it must be breaking it.

Please mark reply as Helpful/Correct, if applicable. Thanks!

[GeoffreyOptumOp]

Yes.  The weird thing is it "seemed" to be working perfectly, without the "AND" clause.

If there is just the one approval, and we switch out the user on the approver record, and the new person approvers it, everything continues normally as desired.

Is it possible that what we are trying to do is actually valid, and there is some kind of a ServiceNow bug?  Or is what I'm trying to do pretty clearly invalid?   Thanks, again. 

[GeoffreyOptumOp · Accepted solution]

I entered a case on this with ServiceNow Support, and the answer was...

"Our DEV team has investigated the issue and looks like this is not a valid use case as switching approvers after approver records have been generated is not supported and that may cause unexpected behavior."

[Allen Andreas]

Hi,

Indeed. As per what I mentioned above and then listed the appropriate way you "should" handle alternate approvers via delegates. So again, it "can" be swapped/changed out, you may get lucky with a single condition, but with the "AND", it broke things completely.

Thanks!