Skip to page contentSkip to chat
ServiceNow support
    • Community
      Ask questions, give advice, and connect with fellow ServiceNow professionals.
      Developer
      Build, test, and deploy applications
      Documentation
      Find detailed information about ServiceNow products, apps, features, and releases.
      Impact
      Accelerate ROI and amplify your expertise.
      Learning
      Build skills with instructor-led and online training.
      Partner
      Grow your business with promotions, news, and marketing tools
      ServiceNow
      Learn about ServiceNow products & solutions.
      Store
      Download certified apps and integrations that complement ServiceNow.
      Support
      Manage your instances, access self-help, and get technical support.
Approvals being approved (skipped) unexpectedly. Why? (Hint: Approval workflow activity can't resolve parameters to pull a group/user to approve) - Support and Troubleshooting
  • >
  • Knowledge Base
  • >
  • Support and Troubleshooting (Knowledge Base)
  • >
  • Approvals being approved (skipped) unexpectedly. Why? (Hint: Approval workflow activity can't resolve parameters to pull a group/user to approve)
KB0786264

Approvals being approved (skipped) unexpectedly. Why? (Hint: Approval workflow activity can't resolve parameters to pull a group/user to approve)


2498 Views Last updated : Sep 21, 2024 public Copy Permalink
KB Summary by Now Assist

Issue

The user is facing an issue with their Workflow "General Software Request" where the Approval activities inside of the workflow were unexpectedly approved (hint: they have an activity.result of "skipped"). The user wanted to know why this is happening.

Resolution

It was found that the Approval activities in question could not resolve the parameters that had been set in them. Hence, when they tried to pull approvers and no approvers were returned from the search, the Approval activities were skipped (i.e. took the "Approved" path which has a condition of "activity.result == 'approved' | activity.result == 'skipped'").

Below are the failed parameters:

    • ${u_requested_for.manager}
    • 6a3a9eeb22393a00b94222131f9619ad

With regard to the first parameter ${u_requested_for.manager}, when navigating to the RITM record where the workflow is attached and viewing the XML for that record, the field "u_requested_for" was found to be empty. Hence, the workflow says, "As I am not able to find any value of any user in the 'u_requested_for' field, I cannot dot-walk to pull a non-existant user's manager. So, let's skip this" (i.e. take the "activity.result == 'skipped'" path).

This first parameter is on both approval activities, so it fails for both of them.

The second approval activity also contained a possible group (sys_user_group) to populate. In this case, the group which this sys_id is pointing to does not exist in the reported affected instance - hence, the approval activity cannot resolve this parameter either:

      • /sys_user_group_list.do?sysparm_query=sys_id%3D6a3a9eeb22393a00b94222131f9619ad

The world works with ServiceNow.

Sign in for more! There's more content available only to authenticated users Sign in for more!
Did this KB article help you?
Did this KB article help you?

How would you rate your Now Support digital experience?

*

Very unsatisfied

Unsatisfied

Neutral

Satisfied

Very satisfied

Very unsatisfied

Unsatisfied

Neutral

Satisfied

Very satisfied

What can we improve? Please select all that apply.

What are we doing well? Please select all that apply.

Tell us more

*

Do you expect a response from this feedback?

  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy statement
  • GDPR
  • Cookie policy
  • © 2025 ServiceNow. All rights reserved.