My workflow is only kicking off an email to the first approver of a two level approver workflow

Question

I am using the example from Laura Rogers book, Infopath Step By Step. I have built my form and Workflow identical to hers (so I thought) Here is the workflow:

Step 1

Set Variable: FormLink to <a href="[%Workflow Context:Current S...


If Form Status not equals Rejected

and  Form Status not equals Completed

Email John Smith


Else if Form Status equals Completed

Email Current Item:Created By


Else if Form Status equals Rejected

Email Current Item:Created By

When I submit the form for the first time the form status is changed to Manager Approval and I receive the email asking to approve the form.

When I open the form and approve the first level and click submit on the form, the form status changes to VP Approval but no email is sent even though the workflow says is has completed.

When I go into the form and approve it on the second level and click submit on the form, the form status changes to Completed and an email is sent to the Current Item: Created By (which is me).

Why is an email not being sent on the second level but the form status?

Answer 1

It looks like your conditional is incomplete. Unless I'm missing something you need to add a 'flag' and another level into your conditional.

I don't see anywhere in there where you are emailing the VP, and a way of determining when to email him/her. Essentially you need to update your conditional state to check for whether the manager approval is complete. You can add a yes/no field for a 'flag', call it managerApproval or if you have a field already, then great.

Next update your Manager step in your conditional to something like this:

If Form Status not equals Rejected
and  Form Status not equals Completed
and managerApproval not equals yes 
(or whatever  you add to determine that the manager has not approved yet)
Email John Smith

Next you need to add another ELSE IF to determine the VP action, this is a simpler statement because if manager approved, then you are just checking for incomplete status and manager approved is yes, so:

ELSE IF  Form Status not equals Completed
and managerApproval equals yes  
Email VP

Then complete it out with your rejected and approved conditionals. So either you need to add another status to your list, or you need to have some other way to determine when the manager has approved, and when it needs to send an email out to the VP.

Answer 2

You need to use wait statement to 'wait' for the status to be changed to 'VP Approval' before your IF condition after Manager approval.

The Wait statement looks like this: 'Wait for field to equal value