How can I skip an approval when the email field matches a certain value?

I have a form that uses a table for input of account numbers. I would like the account numbers to trigger different approvals to different people (so some forms will have multiple approvals if there are multiple account numbers). I also would like to skip approval for the account numbers if the approver is filling out the form (I would use the email field to determine if they are the approver).

The issue I'm having is that I merge all the approvals before moving on to an additional set of approvals. When I do this, I can't seem to skip an approval. When I try to setup a scenario with 2 different account numbers and 2 different approvers, the workflow gets stuck because it doesn't produce the Approver 1 approval (because they filled out the form) and when the Approver 2 approves it the status is just "Approved" without moving on to the next steps of the workflow.

How can I skip an approval when the email field matches a certain value?

https://form.jotform.com/250644631637963

Hi BeckyBennett,

Thanks for reaching out to Jotform Support. I'll need a bit of time to look into this. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

In the meantime, let us know if you have any other questions.

Hi BeckyBennett,

May I ask why you cannot use the True(2) branch condition to skip the Approval that have False(1) branch condition? Check out the screenshot below for more details:

I cloned your form to check the approval workflow, and I saw that prior to Approval element, there is Condition Branch element. The current workflow shows that, Approval is the next step if condition branch result is False. There was no condition branch for the True result. As you can see in my previous screenshot, I added the True(2) result for the condition branch. Doesn't this flow fix the issue?

If that’s not exactly what you’re looking for, can you explain a bit more so I can help you better? Once we hear back from you, we'll be able to move forward with a solution.

I don't believe this will resolve it unless I can immediately auto-approve it. What I'd like to do is that if the condition is TRUE, then the approval will be skipped and no approval will be required. Since I'm running a SPLIT, there are other approvals that might also need to be running for the same form. So in this example, there might be (on the same form), the approval for "Other Accounts" might be skipped because the email matches, but the "Building and Grounds" approval needs to go through normally for approval.

Hi BeckyBennett,

Since Other Accounts and Building and Grounds are conditionally split, once the condition from other accounts is met, it will not interfere with the workflow under Building and Grounds. The approval will go through manually. I suggest following the suggestion given by my colleague, Jonathan.

Let us know if you have any other questions.

Then maybe the approval is going through because the status will say "Approved". However, it doesn't seem to move on to the other parts of the workflow. There is an additional approval check that I haven't tested yet, but there are additional tasks I have tested that do not get triggered under this scenario. The status of the form in Inbox just says Approved and no notification emails are sent out for the task.

Also, looking back at past responses, maybe my goal is not clear. If the condition is met prior to the approval, I would like to skip the approval all together (meaning no approval would be required for Other Accounts if the condition is TRUE), not just divert it from the condition to another approval.

Hi Bennett,

Since this is not possible to bypass a workflow according to condition, did you try to add a True branch to the related workflow If/Else condition, leading to an End/Terminate element, as shown below? I see that you already added this to another branch in your workflow?

Once done, as shown below in the inbox of the clone I did from your form, if the email address is not the one expected, the workflow is set as completed, when it's waiting for approval if the email address doesn't match:

Give it a try and let us know how it's going.

Yes this will complete the flow, but there are still more steps in the flow that need to be completed after this initial parallel approvals. There is a step further down (Accounts Payable Entry) that should send out a notification after all the approvals. Using Termination (or I also tried End) doesn't seem to let the flow advance to this next step.

Hi BeckyBennett,

Since you have multiple elements in your workflow, it's hard for us to understand your workflow. Can you provide us a step by step action of the flow? If the condition is TRUE for the Other Accounts, you mentioned that you want to skip all the approval. Since you don't want it to end or be terminated, what do you want to happen next?

After we hear back from you, we'll be able to move forward with this.

Thanks, yes when marked TRUE is should skip just that approval branch.

Using for submission https://www.jotform.com/inbox/250644631637963/6181138550163688947

• 51037 is in Account Distribution field so it will go to the Other Accounts Branch
• 52515 is in the Account Distribution field so it will go to the Building a Grounds Branch
• The form was completed by bdoerman@thewocc.com so the condition in TRUE in the Other Accounts branch and the approval is skipped.
• The condition is FALSE in the Building and Grounds Branch so approval is required.
  
  
• Once all approvals are completed (using a MERGE element) there is another condition if it is over $500 it requires another approval (it doesn't).
• Then another condition that if it's over $5,000 it requires another approval (it doesn't)
• Then the submitter (bdoerman@thewocc.com) is notified that the disbursement is approved.
  
  
• Then there's a conditional branch for the type of disbursement (in the type field on the form).
• This submission is "Invoice" so it goes to a task Accounts Payable Entry
• Once complete it gets saved in a OneDrive folder
• End of Workflow

Hi BeckyBennett,

Let's go with this one by one, starting on the first part of the workflow, then we'll go for the second and third part afterward. If the form was completed by bdoerman@thewocc.com, the condition for the Other Accounts Branch is TRUE, right? After this, where will this lead to? On which part of the approval you want to connect this TRUE condition? Do you want it to connect to the conditional branch where in if the total amount is greater than 500? Check out my screenshot below for reference:

After we hear back from you, we'll be able to move forward with this.

Yes that's correct it should go to the condition for if the total amount is over $500 but not trigger that over $500 approval unless all the previous approvals have been resolved. So if it is over $500 that approval should not be sent until the Buildings and Grounds approval is finished as well.

Hi BeckyBennett,

Just to clarify, so I can guide you accurately. Do you want the $500 approval to wait only until any required branch approvals are completed, or should it always wait for both branches to finish, even if one was skipped?

Once we hear back from you, we'll be able to help you with this.

Yes it should wait until both branches are finished even if one is skipped.

Hi Bennett,

This makes it clearer. Nevertheless, this requires to continue step by step. With some chance, the actual step is the only one to achieve. I did a test to trig the second required approval when the total amount is greater the 500, after having followed the two previous branches, as you described. Nevertheless, I'm not sure that the fields columns you selected in the Form Calculation widget are the one you expected. So, in my clone, I changed the Form Calculation to perform the calculation as shown below:

And, using this amount which is greater than 500, a second approval may be requested, but this doesn't happen, as you mention, the is no new approval request sent. Because of this reason, I created a ticket and escalated this to our Developers. Although we don't know exactly when it'll be fixed, we’ll circle back to this thread when we have an update.

Thanks for your patience and understanding, we appreciate it.



Thanks. Yes that's correct that "Total Amount" field wasn't calculating from the right column.

Yes the approval issue is as you described.

Hi BeckyBennett,

My colleague, Frederic, already escalated this to our developers. We'll get back to you as soon as we hear back from them.

We appreciate your patience and understanding.

This is the same user, but I've moved this form over to another account to be able to experiment with it without messing with our other forms on my working account, sothe duplicate form is at https://form.jotform.com/250933838359166

I thought I could do a workaround with this issue by making the approvals be linear instead of parallel, but this doesn't seem to be working. I tried testing it with a simple disbursement that only has one line, but it just marks the form as "Completed" without getting stopped at any of the approvals in the Workflow or the tasks.

Thanks,

Hi BeckyBennett,

Thanks for letting us know and we'll forward it to our Developers. We'll get back to you as soon as we get an update from them.

We really appreciate your patience and understanding while we’re looking into this.

Hi bdoerman,

To avoid confusion, I've moved your question to a new thread and will be helping you out here.

Let us know if you have any other questions.