Workflow failing when more than one user in the approval sequence

lisa.hazell@me.com

Hi! - wondering if anyone out there can help before I pull my hair out

We have a client using workflows for their order approvals, approval user setup is all setup and working well on the Sales side, however on the Purchase side - invoices and credits seem to get 'stuck' when the approval sequence is more than one (EDITED) currently we have to manually delete the record restriction to get around it - it's all out of the box stuff and have tried rebuilding adding in lines to ensure the restriction is removed.

The setup is salesperson/purchaser approver and approval chain but when the sequence of approvers is more than one the status of the approval will be stuck at create even when the invoice has been initially approved by the 1st approver ?

Please can anyone offer any help, I really would be most grateful.

Thanks,

Slawek_Guzek

Hi,

Check the response line where the condition is "Pending Approval" >0. Standard workflow has just one response "Send approval request for the record and create a notification" but it also has set up next optional response. Look at the screenshot below:


It is a tiny detail easy to overlook, but if it is missing the workflow is terminated after the first approval leaving entries half processed.

This optional response is normally setup when the workflow is created from build-in template, but it is easy to overlook it if someone during configuration deleted the response and re-created it manually.

Slawek

bilalrai

I have worked on workflows. And its workflow's feature that until and unless it is not approved by all the persons in sequence record restriction is enabled. Record restriction until it is not approved is a step.
Do you want to disable approvals but enable remaining workflow ?
For this go to your workflow. Then on the responses click on assist (...) button. A pop up will be opened. Then select to the approval line right click and delete that line.
Do you want to enable both approvals and workflows but you want only one approver ?
For this again follow the above steps. Click on the approval line in pop up in the below you'll see "Approver Limit type" you can change it to "Direct approver" or for proper settings go to page "Approval User Setup".
If I do not get your question please elaborate it and reply again.
Regards,
Bilal

lisa.hazell@me.com

Thanks for getting back to me, this issue is that the second or third approver isn't able to approve the workflow as it seems to be getting stuck and the status is sat at create instead of open ? this is despite all the other approvers approving the request - hope that makes sense.

lisa.hazell@me.com

Is anyone able to help, it now seems as though the workflow is stuck at the last point and the status of the invoice will stay at pending approval and the record restriction isn't being removed ?

JohnHunter

There must be an entry with status "Open" for next approver in chain. Others will sit with status "Created".

lisa.hazell@me.com

The status in the approval entry is set to open for the first approver it then updates for the next approver and all approval entries are 'approved' it is the status of the order that isn't updating as this will still show as pending approval and then user is able to release manually but the record restriction is still in place as the workflow never updated and removed it

lisa.hazell@me.com

Checking the workflow it's inactive on RELEASEDOCUMENT so assuming this is why the Purchase document isn't approving, have checked event/response combinations but they are the same as the other workflows so not sure why this one is having issues ?

Slawek_Guzek

Hi,

Check the response line where the condition is "Pending Approval" >0. Standard workflow has just one response "Send approval request for the record and create a notification" but it also has set up next optional response. Look at the screenshot below:


It is a tiny detail easy to overlook, but if it is missing the workflow is terminated after the first approval leaving entries half processed.

This optional response is normally setup when the workflow is created from build-in template, but it is easy to overlook it if someone during configuration deleted the response and re-created it manually.

Slawek