Trigger an approval flow if an option was selected from a Dropdown field.

I have been asked to have a form with dropdown dialog box with short description names (aka Depts) be selected and when the form is submitted that group that would then get an approval workflow email started where anyone one of the group could approve before going on to the next step. I figured out how to do a notification email from a dropdown box based on conditions but outside of someone manually knowing and entering in a email to the email control I can’t find a way to have a workflow started where a person selects a selection in the dropdown control. 

Hi Brian,

Thanks for reaching out to Jotform Support. I apologize for any confusion, but I'm having trouble fully understanding your concern. To assist you better, could you please take a screenshot of your approval flow and indicate where you're experiencing an issue? This guide will show you how to do that.

After we hear back from you, we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on and how to help.

So the dropdown is here:

Now it has multiple Departments listed and you can do conditions such as:

but they are only notifications, not a approval workflow start

Hi Brian,

Thanks for getting back to us. To make sure I understand what you're asking, you would like to connect the form to an Approval Flow and when they select an option on the Dropdown field, the Approval Flow will be triggered if the submission needs to be Approved or Denied, is that right?

If that is correct, I'll need a bit of time to look into this and I'll get back to you as fast as I can.

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

That is correct, and my rep did get back to me and suggested a hidden email field so I am going to look at that and see if it might work. Hopefully you would suggest the same thing?

Hi Brian,

Thanks for patiently waiting. Upon checking on your account, you only have this form and if this is not the form that you are referring to, can you please share with us the form URL so we can check it?

Moving forward, I used a demo form to show you a workaround. Here's how:

First, we added the Dropdown element, then input the Departments as the options, and enabled the Calculation Values for the Email Addresses of each Department. Let me show you how:

• On Form Builder, under the Form Elements panel, click the Dropdown element.
• Click the Gear icon on the Dropdown element and select the Options tab on the right panel.
• On the Options box, input the different departments.
• Scroll down, and toggle the Calculation Values to the On position.
• Input the email addresses of each department.

Next is to pass the Calculation Values of the Dropdown to the Department Email field by using the Update / Calculate Field Conditional Logic. Let me show you how:

• Click the Settings tab on the orange navigation bar.
• Select Conditions on the left panel, and click Update/Calculate Field.
• Select the Department field as IF, Is Filled as the STATE, Copy Field Value as the DO, Department field as the FROM, and Department Email as the TO.
• Then, click Save.

Then, we will add the Approval Flows and if you already have an existing one, you can simply click the Pen icon to edit.

On the Approval Flows Builder, we will use the Conditional Logic Branch and send the notification email if the outcome is Approved. Take a look at the screencast below:

If this is not exactly what you're looking for, please let us know.