allow multiple declines on requested approval

[Deleted user]

we have business requirement as allow multiple declines on requested approval. ( one decline vote isn't enough to make decision and one approve vote isn't also enough to make decision) 

I have requested Atlassian Jira service desk as new feature request as https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSDSERVER-6450

We would love to hear back response from community if someone has found the workaround with JSD and scriptrunner to overcome the challenge.

Problem Definition

When there are multiple approvers on an issue, if only one denies or approves, the issue is transitioned without giving other approvers an opportunity to agree or disagree. This results in a lot of administrative work as these issues have to be placed back into a status requiring approval so the approval step can be repeated.

Suggested Solution

Create a way to configure workflow transitions for approvals based on the number of approvals/rejections. For example, if I have three approvers on an issue, I could set the following for the approval:

• Required to approve: 1
• Required to deny: 2

In this example, if any one approver gives the green light, the request is approved. If one denies it, however, another will have to agree to deny the request.

Why this is important

This allows my team to more effectively distribute approval responsibility without creating significant administrative overhead.

Workaround

No workaround at this time.

[Shawn Masters]

I would create a hidden field that Increments up 1 when Denied then have the workflow loop until a condition is met for the hidden fields value to be >= your required value. 

Can accomplish this with the Addon JWME for Jira

[Susan Hauth _Jira Queen_]

Hi Shawn,

Except the Approve/Decline step do not look at other conditions that you add into the transition.   Unless they fixed that in a later version of JSD.

Early on I tried adding in "except reporter" condition to approvals as I didn't want the reporter approving their own request even if they were in the approvers group.  This condition was ignored.

We eventually used scriptrunner and added in a post-function that removed the reporter from the approvers list prior to the approval.

Susan

[Shawn Masters]

Im not sure if they fixed it in Core Jira...the addon i mentioned (JWME) adds a lot of functionality to your workflow transitions and post functions which may have allowed me to bypass your issue. 

[Susan Hauth _Jira Queen_]

I use JWME quite heavily as well.  But it was the fundamental conditional verification on the approve/decline step in JSD that seems to be hard-coded to ignore any other conditions.

[Shawn Masters]

Ah understood, I will see if I can recreate it in my own instance and see what i come up with.

Did you bring the conditional issue to Atlassians attention? If so, what was their response about it not working as expected? 

[Susan Hauth _Jira Queen_]

Found it..already raised in JAC...

:-(

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSDSERVER-6325 -

Make approval step to respect workflow conditions

[Deleted user]

Thanks for the response but we want something which should be visual like JSD approval. where we should be able to track who denied it and who approved it.

[Susan Hauth _Jira Queen_]

Hi Milan,

It would be absolutely visual.  You just need multiple approval / decline steps.  Each one gets recorded as to who approved it and who declined.

Susan

[Deleted user]

Hi Susan

Do you mean add another status (steps in workflow Mr.A's Apprval then Mr B's approval and then Ms.C's approval)? ( this will be cumbersome and we want to track everything in one approval status where every one comes and add their vote regardless positive or negative.) please correct me if i read/understood wrong. Thanks  

Currently we have workflow like this:
At Awaiting Approval:
if 2 of 3 approvers approved >> move it to Approved status.
else if any one rejects (which we hate :( ) >> move to Rejected status. 
from rejected status again you can go back to re-submit for approval or close the ticket.
(Moving back ticket to Awaiting approval needs again vote from 2 people out of 3).

[Susan Hauth _Jira Queen_]

Hi,

That's the only valid workaround I see is to add more approval / decline steps.

:-(

[Deleted user]

No problem Susan thanks for response. May be you can add vote on here to get this feature implemented in JSD. https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSDSERVER-6450?_ga=2.896883.318485735.1562001220-2056165980.1556539570

[Susan Hauth _Jira Queen_]

Hi,

I did vote for it.  However, at 4 votes, this is not going to bubble to the top of Atlassian's priority list.

Susan

[Susan Hauth _Jira Queen_]

Hi,

I would suggest making multiple approval steps.  Approval Step 1, Approval Step 2. Same with Declines.  So if it gets approved and moves to the next approval step, you could use scriptrunner to remove the last approver from the list of approvers so now Approval Step 2 is less approvers. 

Same with Declines.

Susan