One of the first things you may wish to explore when using our Approve app is when approval is required from a manager and how to configure this in an efficient manner when multiple managers are involved.

If the manager is always the same for a particular approval flow, they can be statically assigned directly within the approval definition but what if the manager is different depending on who is requesting the approval? This article aims to help answer that question and explore the different methods to approach this use case effectively.

Some questions you may want to ask yourself are:

Who is requesting the approval?

• Agent
• Internal end-user (within the company)
• External end-user (outside of the company)

How is the request created?

• The ticket is created by an end-user, reviewed by an agent then manually (or automatically) sent.
• The ticket already exists and approval is manually requested by an agent as needed.
• The ticket is created by an end-user and approval is automatically requested at the same time.
• The ticket already exists and approval is automatically requested based on the completion of a prerequisite task/event.

Who is the manager and what relationship do they have with the requester?

• The manager is statically assigned within the approval definition. No relationship with the requester.
• The manager is dependent on the individual requesting approval.
• The manager is dependent on the organization requesting approval.
• The manager is dependent on who the agent defines. No relationship with the requester.
• The manager is dependent on who the end-user defines. No relationship with the requester.
• The manager is dependent on conditions set within the ticket (e.g drop-down field). No relationship with the requester.

Let's use a common use case as an example:

In this use case, you'll want to create a custom text user field that will store the manager's email address. You may wish to get creative with how you maintain and populate this field, however, the basic concept remains the same.

The next step would be to reference this field within the approval definition similar to how you would assign a static manager. This field will now serve as the manager when a request is sent using this definition.

Another use case might be:

In this use case, since the onus falls upon the agent to select an approver/manager, you have a few options for how they would input this. Most notable would be to create a custom user lookup field that allows your agents to search any (or from a group of) end-users that exist within Zendesk similar to how you would search and assign static approvers within the approval definition.

Just as before, you'll need to reference this field within the approval definition. This field will now serve as the manager when a request is sent.

The agent can then manually send the request from within the app sidebar or you may wish to send the approval automatically once certain conditions are met such as when a user is present within the lookup field.

If you have any questions or require advice on which use case best suits you're workflow, you can contact our support team at support@sweethawk.com and we would be happy to help. Please include as much information as possible based on the above Who, How and Managers to ensure we can provide the best recommendation.