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1. 

   dawend
   Member

   SharePoint workflow approvers by department:
   Please point me in the right direction. I’ve uploaded an InfoPath “Time Off Request” form to our SharePoint server. In it there is a dropdown box with a list of department managers. My goal is to set the approver for the form according to the “manager Name” chosen from the list. Upon their approval the form would get forwarded to our payroll department. So far I’m not able to get my head around how to draw the approver from the drop down list within the form.

   Posted 8 months ago #
2. 

   KenCronin
   Member

   What you need to do is get the value from the dropdown out of the form into the form library so you can use it. In the dropdown you can set the display name to be different than the value and you can set the value as either a name or an email address.

   In infoPath go to Tools/form options/Property Promotion and add the field (Manager Name). After the form is published, when a form is submitted the Value will be passed to a column in the form library. You can then create a workflow based on that value. Lots of variables from that point depending upon if your value is a name or email address.

   Hope that helps.

   Posted 8 months ago #
3. 

   dawend
   Member

   Where / How do I point a workflow to acquire the approvers name from a list field? At this point I’m trying to (KISS) the process, later I’d like to point the Manager dropdown to a lookup table generated from AD. For now my testing consists of four manager names manually placed in the “Manager” dropdown box within the form. I believe I had already fulfilled your requirement of a (Manager Name) field by way of creating the dropdown itself. This field is being populated by the selections I make. Where I get lost is how to determine the approver from the resulting name. Eventually I’ll also need to figure out how to qualify an email address by way of “Name” from the “Manager” field.

   Posted 8 months ago #
4. 

   KenCronin
   Member

   I am curious what other think but at this point I would go into SharePoint designer and create an If/Than workflow based on the field data that creates an approval process.

   No real easy way to do this that I know of.

   Posted 8 months ago #
5. 

   AutoSponge
   Administrator

   I had a similar problem. This is supposed to be solved by AD, where manager would come from. But if you don't have that data and can't put it there, I think you have to just learn to trust people--that they know who their manager is and will route it appropriately.

   Posted 8 months ago #
6. 

   laura67
   Moderator

   Here's how to do it:
   Read this blog post by my fried Lori, about how to make fields in InfoPath default to values from user profile info:
   http://seethepoint.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!CDB633EE9271C6FA!142.entry

   Except, in your case, you could make a "Manager" field that would default to the person's manager.
   This is VERY COOL STUFF.

   Laura Rogers
   http://spinsiders.com/laurar

   Posted 8 months ago #
7. 

   dawend
   Member

   Laura, Thank you for pointing me to an OOB solution. I bet that you are correct in that the Manager field could be auto populate with my manager, which is what most would require. Once I start playing with this more I might want to have the Manager dropdown be populated with all five managers in our IT dept. hence a Dept dropdown to filter managers by dept., just in case my direct is not available for approving at the time. Yes probably overkill.

   In an interest to learn more about utilizing AD I hope others will share their needs and succeses.

   Posted 8 months ago #

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