Can I have comments made by an approver in an approval workflow be included in the Auto Responder email?

Hello,

I have setup up an approvals flow that is working brilliantly.

What I would like is that when the Approver goes in to Approve/Deny the submission they can enter comments that would be inserted into the auto email that is sent back to the user.

Is this possible?

Thanks

Lee

Hi Lee,

Happy to help!

You can certainly add a field like a Long Text field to your form for the approver to write comments in:

Then, in the Auto Responder email that sends back to the user, you can add this field to the auto-responder email by editing and adding this specific form field. It would look something like this:

I hope this helps! Please let us know if we can assist further.

Hi Katherine,

That is helpful, but needs a bit more work.

I don’t want the Text box to be visible when the user completes the form, only when the Approver goes in to Approve/Deny the submission.

Is this possible

Thanks

Lee

...

Hi Lee,

Thank you for clarifying!

Please allow me a little time to look into how we could make this work, and I will update you via this thread as soon as possible.

I appreciate your patience and understanding as I work on a solution for you!

Hello,

The ticket hasn’t been resolved as I am still waiting for a reply

Kind Regards

Lee

...

Hi Lee,

Thank you for your patience as I put together this potential solution for you.

I am needing to test out the form to ensure that it can do what you have requested, and will update you here today.

Thank you again for your patience!

Hi again Lee,

Thank you again so much for your patience!

I had tested a couple of potential solutions, but I believe that the best (and easiest) way to achieve this is using a Show/Hide condition based on using URL parameters. I made a clone of your form 203502827985058 for the purposes of this example. Here is my cloned form: 210337306460951

I added a new long text field entitled "Approver Comments" to your form, and set the field to be hidden:

Next, we'll add in a Get Page URL Widget:

Then, we're going to edit the Notification email and insert a link with the following URL parameter link. I've set the parameter to stage=2, but you can certainly change this if you'd like: https://www.jotform.com/edit/{id}?stage=2

Next, we'll set the condition to unhide the Approver Comments field based on when the Approver clicks the link and, thus, populates the Get Page URL widget. So then the Approver can add in their comments:

When the form respondent submits the form, the approver will be able to click the link in the email and add in their comments, then re-submit the form with their comments added.

Would this be a viable solution for you? We look forward to your response.

Hi Katherine,

Thanks for investigating the below solutions.

Although they would work, it does add another process for the approver as they will now have to edit the form and add comments before they go into the approval screen.

I’m guessing there is no way of being able to do both things on the same screen?

Thanks

Lee

...

Yes that is correct, the user needs to edit the submission to add the comments and submit form. Once the form is submitted, only then the comment will be capture.

Do get back to us if you have any questions.