Workflow question regarding multiple approvers

Question

I was curious if this is possible.  I have a department who needs to have a workflow where when a person uploads a document they select how many people have to approve it, and who those people are.  On one document it might only be 3 approvers, but on the next it might be 6. 

Those 6 people need to get an email (or to-do) saying that the form has been uploaded and they need to approve it, (which can be done in parallel).  Then if there are any changes it saves the versions (no problem there), and when all 6 (or whatever number) people have approved the document, it goes back the originator.

They want to be able to track who has approved the document so far, and if someone is out of the office they can 'substitute' another approver for that person,and then of course track who those people are.

There are a couple other requirements such as if one of the approvers has the doc open, it's locked and the next approver sees that Bill has it in use, which I am pretty sure is out of the box functionality. 

The big thing is I have never tried to set up a workflow where I didn't know at the start how many people it was going to be routed to, let alone who.  Can a workflow build in variables like that? 

By the way, I am only using SP Designer, not Visual Studio.  I am not a coder so I don't go there.

Thanks for any help in advance.

Ted

Answer 1

That's a pretty complex solution. 
I recommend watching this series of videos.  The solution sounds similar, so you could learn a lot by watching this series and trying it out:

http://www.sharepoint911.com/blogs/laura/Lists/Posts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=8

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Laura Rogers, MCSE, MCTS
SharePoint911: SharePoint Consulting
Blog: http://www.sharepoint911.com/blogs/laura
Twitter: WonderLaura

Answer 2

Hi,

For your scenario, I think you can firstly create a new “person or group” column in document library and set it to be required and multiple selections; then start a SPD workflow when new item is created so user need to type approver user in the required column; finally add an action “Assign a To-do item”, in “Select users” dialog, select users using Workflow Lookup to find the “person or group” column in the document library, the “Assign a To-do item” action will assign tasks to multiple people you selected. You can track the workflow in Task list, and you can reassign the task to another people if someone is out of the office.

I think these articles can help you to get started: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/CH100667661033.aspx

Hope it helps.

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Xue-Mei Chang