Approval Workflow - Use input field column as conditional branch for different approval steps.

I have a check request form i need to have approvals on. You can look at the form in the account if you want to its called check request. I have a table in the form that is requesting the department number.

Is there a way to either change the form to make approvals easier or to use that field in the table for department number. (I'd prefer that field being a dropdown). I need to have it so each department can be approved by a different manager. Is this possible or how would I manage this? its a complex question. Thanks for the help

Hi wnmdag,

Thanks for reaching out to Jotform Support. Unfortunately, it is not possible to specify which column to use when selecting the input table in a conditional logic statement on the approval workflow. The entire table can be selected to check if it's filled or not but it's not possible to determine which column to use. If you want to specify which department I suggest separating the department number from the input table into its own dropdown field. This way you can use it as a conditional logic on the approval workflow to determine which manager will approve it based on their selection of the department number. Let me show you how to do it:

1. Open your form in Form Builder and click on the Input Table Field.
2. Remove the Department Number from the list of the columns.
3. In the menu on the left under the Basic tab drag and drop a drop-down field into your form and add the Departments in the Options tab.

Now that the Departments are listed on the drop-down field. We can now add the conditional branch to your approval workflow to determine which manager to send an approval email to. Here is how:

1. Open your forms Approval Workflow and in the menu on the left under Logic Elements add a Conditional Branch on the workflow.
2. Click on the Add Conditions button of the conditional branch and add a Branch condition for each of the Department selecting the Department # Field in the IF Statement.
3. Create a Branch Line for each of the Conditional branches and add an Approval Element to them.
4. You may determine which Conditional Branch to use for each approval element by clicking on the Select Branch button.
5. After configuring all the Branches you may now add the email of the manager for approval for each approval element. Click on the Approval element and its Gear icon.
6. In the menu that opens on the right, you may add the Managers email on the Approver Email.
7. Lastly, to avoid any problems click on the approval element that has a red border and connect it to the End Flow and select the approval outcome. This would mean that the approval workflow would be marked as completed when the end flow is reached.

That's it. Now an approval email would be sent to the selected department manager on the department number field of your form instead of sending it all to one manager to approve. Here is a demo form as well where the steps above are applied. You can clone the demo form to your account if you want to further check it. This guide should help you with how to clone the form to your account.

Give it a try and let us know if you have any questions.

I thought about that, How would one handle if more than one department was needed in a single form? I love the idea of the chart but we have some invoices that we pay that have multiple departments on one invoice. I get the logic part now but need that piece as well. This form wil have a lot of function in it

Hi wnmdag,

Thanks for getting back to us. Unfortunately, it is not possible to achieve this. As again it is not possible to select a specific column on the input table. If the number of invoices that you are receiving in one submission is fixed this can be done using parallel approvals. This means that you would be adding multiple dropdown fields for each invoice and its department and then creating a conditional branch for each of them. Using the same steps that I have sent in my previous reply.

Here is an example of a parallel approval with conditional branching.

In the example above I have created a parallel approval for two department number dropdown fields. This means that you would need to repeat the workflow for each of the dropdown approvals. Please note that if they did not fill out the dropdown field for the department number the approval workflow would not start.

Let us know if you have any questions.

I got ya. ok so then last question I hope. Can I create a section instead of a table? The section would be Invoice date/name What purchased, Account name and number, Detp #, and amount.

If a person needed more sections is there a way they can click a button and add another section?

Then in the "if then area" I would only have one set of rules for the entire section and every time the section is added the rules would apply to it?

The end user could add the section if it was needed for each dept or account number on the one invoice

Hello wnmdag,

Thanks for getting back to us. I am not sure what you mean by section. Are trying to consider another way how to create approvals apart from creating an Approval Workflow shared by my colleague?

Another way I could think of is to send an email to the second and foregoing approvers with the edit submission link so that he/she can edit the submission or sign the form.

Let me provide you with the steps:

• Make sure you have set up different Signature fields for all signatories.
• You will also need to add Email fields for each department.
• Set up an Autoresponder. As the Recipient, you can choose the approver's email field.
• Insert the Edit Link into the Autoresponder. You can find it under the "Form Fields" on the Email Content editor. Or you can simply insert it by typing {edit_link}.

When the first person fills the form and submits it, an Autoresponder will be sent to the approver. They can click on the link, review the form, sign, and submit it again. The form will be forwarded to the third signatory and so forth.