Workflow Approval Notification

We have successfully configured the approval workflow for Employee Self-Service (ESS) and it is functioning as expected. However, we are experiencing two issues with the notification process:

1. Multiple notifications: Instead of receiving a single notification, the approver is receiving multiple notifications for the same request.

 2. Premature notification: Notifications are being triggered before the approval process is initiated.

Could you please assist us in resolving these issues and ensure that notifications are triggered only once

Notification is triggered after the approval process has started?