Two layer approval workflow

Question

I come from a development background and have only been using SharePoint for a year, and i am need of some help, I have been dealing with a customer using SharePoint 2013 who have a specific requirement.

They currently have a document library, with content approval, and versioning (minor and major). Upon uploading a document, there is a required field to specify which group it belongs to (information is held in a list so just a simple lookup column). There are 350 groups and they each have their own user which can approve a document.

Upon publishing a document, this user needs to approve it first and once that part is approved, then the site approver will need to accept it before it can be visible to all other users.

My issue is in the workflow - how can I can set the approver to the correct user, based upon the 'group' lookup value? I have thought of a huge If-else statement, which doesn't seem sustainable.

Even if i get that far, modifying the out of the box approval workflow looks very complicated - and doesn't look like i can start another approval workflow process from inside one.

Any help is greatly appreciated! Many thanks!

Answer 1

You can achieve this as below.

1. Modify lookup list and add a new people/group field. Then populate with the first approver details.
2. Create a SharePoint designer workflow and insert an Approval Task Activity with current item and choose the lookup list new field.
3. Now edit the Approval Task process and edit what should happen on the overall approval process.
4. Modify if approved part and add your logic..