Workflow review and approval with multiple distribution lists - SharePoint 2013

Question

I am creating a document library with a workflow for my architects and engineers so that they can gain review acceptance and ultimately approval for their documents before they are published.

Each set documents that they create will have a different audience for review and approval but I want them all to work from the same document library.

My question is, is there a way of creating a workflow where they can add in metadata and choose a specific distribution list for their review and then also, once reviews are completed that will then automatically start the approval process, again where they can choose which distribution list they need.

So the process will be:

• Engineer / Architect creates document
• Uploads to SharePoint and completes metadata
• He chooses the correct distribution list from the metadata to get his document reviewed
• When everyone within that group has reviewed, he then chooses his approval distribution list and starts that process
• When all is reviewed and approved, the document gets published (possibly another workflow step?)

Please note that I am not overly technical so the simplest way to set this up would be appreciated!!

Any help that any could give me would be greatly received :o)

Answer 1

If you have no access to SharePoint designer, or you prefer not to create a custom workflow for this process, it may be an option to create 2 built-in approval workflow with different approval distribution list. You can set the approvers when setting the workflow. Then ask end users to choose the workflow which meets their needs. Of course it may cause some trouble as you need both review and approval, so it may be 4 workflows, 2 for review and 2 for approval.

For custom workflow, you can create two branch with approval action for different user group to review, then use an if condition to check the metadata and goes to the right one. And I will suggest to make user enter the choice for review group and approve group at the very beginning, then we can simply add one more approval process for approval.