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Time Sheet Portal / Form: Delegated Approver cannot Approve or Reject Timesheets

Chirag Pathak
Tera Contributor
Hi Community,
I am currently validating the Timesheet functionality regarding delegation and running into an issue.
My Setup:
User B is a manager of multiple users.
User A has been designated as an active delegate for User B (with Approvals = true on the sys_user_delegate record).
Both User A and User B have the timecard_approver role.
The Issue:
When an employee (whose manager is User B) submits their timesheet, User B (the original manager) can see the options to Approve or Reject perfectly. However, User A (the delegated user) cannot see the Approve or Reject buttons—either on the Time Sheet Portal (/tcp) or directly on the backend time_sheet form. Instead, User A only sees options like Submit or Recall.
Per ServiceNow documentation, the delegated user should be able to approve or reject timesheets on behalf of the manager.
Has anyone else faced this limitation with the Time Sheet Portal and forms? Is there an out-of-the-box property I am missing, or do the Time Sheet UI Actions and portal widgets require custom scripting to support the sys_user_delegate table?
Any solutions or workarounds would be greatly appreciated!
1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Hi @Chirag Pathak ,

The approver list only populates the primary approvers (Manager, Record Manager) - based on policy

Delegate approval makes use of this list to build its logic: if the approver is present in approver list and has delegated approval, it will let the delegate approve or reject.

If you don't create a delegate, a delegate can't approve it - just the Managers/admins

 

Here is the logic:

Script include name: TimeSheetUIActionHelper (this is called from Approve and Reject Button)

HemanthM_0-1790267863698.png

 

HemanthM_1-1790267876719.png

 

Hope it helps!

Accept and hit Helpful if it helps.

Thank you,
Hemanth
Certified Technical Architect (CTA), ServiceNow MVP 2024, 2025,2026

View solution in original post

15 REPLIES 15

Thank you @Hemanth M this helps!

Sunil B N
ServiceNow Employee

Hi Chirag,

Unfortunately there was an issue which directly affected this use case. This has been resolved in Brazil, Australia Patch 1, YP13 and ZP8. Please let us know if you have further concerns on this.
For more documentation about Approval delegation is here.
Best regards,
Sunil B N

Hi @Sunil B N ,

There is confusion around this cause the doc does not specifically specify that the time sheet policy should have non_project_time_approver or project_time_approver in order for delegation to work. But once we have that populated it does work. Also specification about those two fields how they help in business stand point would help.

There is another concern also we have so time cards which do not have project task populated once the approval is given on that it goes to processed and when project task is not populated it goes to approved there is business rule process time card which takes care of that scenario based on the script include but the history on the time card suggest something else 

ChiragPathak_0-1790617643194.png



As per this the state transition from submitted to approved and submitted to processed happens at the same time unlike how that BR says so we were not sure if thats how it is?


Thanks,
Chirag

 

Hi Chirag,
Thanks for pointing that out. We will add clear information in the docs for clarity.
Ideal workflow for all timecards is that Pending > Submitted > Approved > Processed.
The history is definitely confusing. Could you please let us know the family version in which you are seeing this?
We will analyze and get back to you on this.
Thanks & regards,
Sunil B N

Hi @Sunil B N,

We are facing this in Zurich Patch 10. Meanwhile if you could provide a confirmation if thats how it works OOB that would be helpful!

Thanks,
Chirag