iAssets and AME customization of the Approval Workflow

We have customized the approval workflow for iAssets transfer approvals so that the approvers are chosen automatically.  Even though this is customized and the data is not  used, the transfer process requires the user to provide releasing and receiving approvers.  If we change the process so that approvals are not required, the prompts go away, but the custom workflow is not used.  I have tried to specifiy an initial value for the releasing approver, but the value is not populated in the form.  I woudl like to use the custom workflow and not prompt the user to select approvers.  How