Understanding the Abstain Feature in Approval Path
When it comes to decision-making, there are times when we don’t want to give a definitive “yes” or “no.” Based on our customer’s request, we have launched a new feature in Approval Path: Abstain option. This option is working on both Approval Path for Jira and Approval Path for Confluence. The term ‘abstain’ means to stay neutral in a decision. This option allows you to opt out of a vote without siding with approval or rejection, which can be useful in several situations. In our app, this also functions as silent approval.
When to Choose the Abstain Option?
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Uncertainty: If you’re unsure about the potential outcomes, abstaining lets you stay neutral without disrupting the decision-making process.
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Lack of Information: You might feel you don’t have enough information to make an informed decision.
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Delegation of Responsibility: Sometimes, you might prefer to leave the decision to others who are more directly involved.
How to Use the Abstain Option
In this chapter, we have prepared abstain process images based on Approval Path for Jira.
- You can navigate to Global Settings → General → Enable abstain action in Approval Path.
- By clicking ‘Enable abstain action’, you will be able to find abstain checkbox from Definitions.
- Create Definitions accordingly to your standard, and try abstain in Jira issue (or Confluence page.) You will be able to find this button once you enabled.
You can easily select ‘Abstain’ button.
Your decisions have an outcome, even if you abstain
In Group step, you can easily set up the number of votes required to be approved or to be rejected. Let’s say there are 3 voters and first person approves, another rejects, and the third abstains, the decision may be considered approved, as the abstain vote counts as silent approval. However, if more votes are required for approval, the outcome may change accordingly.
Depends on number of votes required, outcome may vary.
For further details on how the Abstain option works, please refer to our Warsaw Dynamics - Abstain Documentation for Jira, and Abstain Documentation for Confluence. From our Documentation, you can also check edges cases how abstain option operates as rejection, or approval.
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