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How to
Use a chain of managers in an approval process
Background:
This document will explain how to use Nintex Workflow 2007 to request approval from the workflow
initiators manager then that managers manager and so on until there is no-one left in the
managerial approval chain. Below is the final workflow. Other workflow actions can be added at
your discretion. PLEASE NOTE: this process depends on the use of Active Directory.



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The first step is to create the required workflow variables. One variable will be used to record the
nomination of the Current Approver. Another will be used to store the name of the current
approvers manager and another will be used to record whether or not the approval process is
complete.


Now in the workflow designer we set the current Approver to be the manager of the initiator of the
workflow using a Build dynamic string action (seen below).



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We then create a loop which is set to run while there is a manager. The condition set for the loop is
for it to continue while the variable Approval process complete is set to No.

Inside the loop we add a Request approval action which sets the approver using the value stored
in the Current Approver variable.



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If the item in the workflow is declined it follows the Declined path , the Approval Process
Complete variable is set to be Yes and the loop ends. Otherwise the Approved path is followed.
In the Approved path, we then use a Query LDAP action to look up the manager of the current
approver. However, to comply with LDAP standards, we first need to strip the domain name from
the user name stored in the Current Approver variable using a Regular Expression action (see
below).
Please note: Replace Crestan\\ with your domain and ensure you include the double slash.
The stripped result is stored back into the Current approver variable.





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We then make the LDAP query using the user name stored in the Current approver variable. The
result returned is stored in the other variable Manager DN.




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The result sent to the Manager DN variable is the distinguished name. We now need to convert
the distinguished name to a standard domain\username format and store it into the Current
Approver variable.

A condition action is added to check if the Manager DN variable is empty. If it is not empty, the
loop continues. If it is empty, the Approval Process Complete variable is set to be Yes. Once
that variable is set to Yes, the loop will end and whatever remains of the workflow outside the
loop can run.