Is there any way that you can have approvals run in parallel within a request item?

[ritaaudi]

Hi: I'm not having any luck running 2 approvals in parallel within a request item. It seems that one approval has to finish before the second one starts. Is there a way around this? Like perhaps kick off 2 requests items within the master request item, or something along those lines?

Thank you! Rita

[Michael Ritchie]

Ok now I understand, thanks for the additional information. It would be best to bring the approvals into the main workflow, then once approval happens launch group code.   This said it's tricky too.   Let me stew in this and I will reply back tomorrow with some ideas.

[ritaaudi]

Thank you!! If it helps, here's the run activity code in the main workflow which calls the subworkflow:

and here's the subworkflow:

[Michael Ritchie]

Rita, sorry today turned out to be busier than expected.   Your use case is quite complex for a single catalog item and workflow -   Dynamically creating N number of approvals and then once those approvals happen launch the fulfillment process while waiting for other approvals.   I have been thinking about how best to solve it and it would be really complex code.   If you require that it be set to just the 3 groups, you could actually put 3 If statements looking for that group selection and then go to the approval and then launch the subflow like you are doing.   But its best to have the approvals happen in the request item workflow.

I would like to propose a 1:1 mapping of request item to group.   From the catalog you can add a list variable allowing the users to select any number of groups and then upon submit, use a script to loop through the list and create a request item as a child of the parent request for each group selected.   Then each request item can operate independently of one another.

Thoughts on this approach?

[Michael Ritchie · Accepted solution]

Here is an example workflow layout to show you want I mean in the first paragraph above about having a set number of groups and using If activities.

[ritaaudi]

Hi Michael: Thank you for getting back to me.

Regarding your workflow above, I remember I tried putting 2 approvals in the main workflow but without the if activity and it didn't work. Does the if activity make the difference? What condition would I put in the if activity?

Regarding your second approach, are you saying the catalog item only processes one group for one user? Currently I am using a list collector with up to 3 groups per user. So instead the user will have to submit 3 catalog items?

I think first approach would be better if I can get it to work.

Regards, Rita