What is Abstain option?
Abstain option allows approvers to express vote of abstention. If a user decides to abstain, this choice is considered neutral with respect to decisions made by other approvers.
If the other approvers agree, it will be considered as a silent approval. If they disagree, it will be considered as a rejection.
Abstain option can be used on…
User step
Group step
E-mail step
Issue field step
For action type : Approval & Consent
How to set Abstain option?
You can navigate to Global Settings of Approval Path for Jira.
Navigate to Settings → General → Enable abstain action.
Now, from Definitions, you will be able to find ‘Allow Abstain Approval’ checkbox.
Go to your issue and run your Approval definition. You can find ‘Abstain’ button and click.
Remarks
Abstain is treated as silent approval. So if all voters choose to be abstained, the final status will be updated as ‘Approved’
If ‘Allow Abstain’ is disabled either at the definition level or globally, the option is not available for approval steps.
Edge cases
From the following table below, you will find answers to specific situations related to abstain option.
| Case 1 | Case 2 |
|---|
| Case 1 | Case 2 |
|---|---|---|
Scenario | Group users step that contains 3 users Number of votes required for group step to pass is 2 Number of votes required for group step to fail is 2 | Group users step that contains 3 users Number of votes required for group step to pass is 3 Number of votes required for group step to fail is 2 |
Given | First user approved, Second user rejected, Third user abstained | First user approved, Second user rejected, Third user abstained |
Outcome | Step is marked as Approved | Step is marked as Rejected |
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