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mkimener
Frequent Visitor

Approval Flow - Approval Request coming from creator not actual requestor

Hi all,

I created an approval flow.  Everything is working well, expect one small piece.  When the approver gets the approval email request, it is showing that the request is coming from me (Meredith) the creator. I need it to shows a coming from the person who filled out the form and is actually requesting the PTO.  Here are the flow steps:

1. Employee fills out PTO From - they select their office location, and based on this it will send the approval to the Director of that office

2. Get Response Details

2. Switch

3. Conditions - I have conditions for each location so that the approval email goes to that specific Director only (there are 7 conditions)

4. Start and wait for an approval - This is where the problem is.  The approval email says that I am the one requesting the PTO since I am the creator of the flow.  Not the person who complete the PTO Form.

5. Condition - Outcome

6. If Yes, Creates a Sharepoint item (I have a sharepoint list that shows all approvals)

6a. Send approval email to responder, HR and Payroll

7. If No, Creates a Sharepoint item (I have a sharepoint list that shows all denials)

7a. Sends denial email to responder with comments 

 

My question is how do I get my email off the approval request and to show the forms responder email instead??

 

 

I am the creator, Meredith.  So you can see it says at the top, "Requested by Meredith".  However Lauryn is the one who is actually requesting it, so how to I make it say "Requested by Lauryn" instead?

 

Approval Flow Error.png

 

 

 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions
tom_riha
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

Hello @mkimener ,

If the flow was developed under your account then you won't be able to remove yourself completely, you'll stay among the flow owners. You can share the flow with the admin account, replace all connections in the flow by the service account connections and then delete your connections.

Or you can export the flow and import it again under the admin account, that way your account will not be involved in the flow anymore. The admin account must have access to all the resources you use - it must have permissions on the SP list, it must have Office license, and if the form is a MS Forms form, it must be created by the admin account.

 



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tom_riha
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

Hello @mkimener ,

if it's an automatically started flow then you can't use the user who started the flow. Thats possible only for manually started flow.

You could set the user into the 'Requestor' field in the 'Start and wait for an approval' action, it won't remove your name completely from the notification, but it wouldn't be the main name there.

image.png

To remove your name completely you'd need a special account whose connection to the Approvals application would be used = an extra Office account just for this flow. Or start the flow manually, as already mentioned.

 



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Tom_riha,

Thanks for suggesting this, I have added the Forms Responses Name to the requestor field.  In terms of using an extra account, I am going to create a generic admin account for creating and managing flows.  If I go into this flow and add that account as an "Owner" and then remove my individual work account, will the flow still work?  I will need to add the connections to that admin account and remove my connections?  This is a very complicated flow with a ton of switches and conditions, and I don't want to build it all over again!

tom_riha
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

Hello @mkimener ,

If the flow was developed under your account then you won't be able to remove yourself completely, you'll stay among the flow owners. You can share the flow with the admin account, replace all connections in the flow by the service account connections and then delete your connections.

Or you can export the flow and import it again under the admin account, that way your account will not be involved in the flow anymore. The admin account must have access to all the resources you use - it must have permissions on the SP list, it must have Office license, and if the form is a MS Forms form, it must be created by the admin account.

 



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j_menin
Frequent Visitor

Hi,

 

I'm actually struggling with the first step. I have a form where by I want to send it for approval based on a location question from the form. So if location A is chosen, it goes location A approver. Location B is chosen, it goes to B approver and so on. How do I code this logic in? Atm I'm trying to use a switch condition but am getting an error when attempting to add cases.

 

Any help would greatly appreciate!

tom_riha
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

Hello @j_menin ,

I'd recommend to start a new topic for your problem with more information about your problem: what you've done so far, what your flow looks like, and what error you encounter, including screenshots from your flow.

 



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Hi @tom_riha ,

I liked your response even though I don't actually like the answer 🤔
I too have just stumbled on this 'issue', and it bugs me that my name always shows up when another user kicks off the approval process.

 

Do you know if in the months since this post, there has been a 'fix' or another easy workaround created (other than those you've already mentioned)? 

 

Your help has been very useful!

Thanks

tom_riha
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

Hello @brixxy ,

I didn't try it lately, but I don't think that anything changed. But if you want to avoid showing your name, you can always create a separate, service account that you'll use in the flows instead of the personal one.



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Kanmera
Regular Visitor

Hi All, just following up on this as I had a similar issue and not certain if the admin account would work in this case 

my issue is that the one who submitted the approval request cannot see in the Approvals App the status of the approval. I attached a power automate flow within sharepoint and connected this to the Approvals App however only I as the flow creator can see the approval status. How can I get the actual person who submitted the request to see in the Approvals App the status of the approval?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
beatlefreak1
Frequent Visitor

This is so stupid....

what in the world is MS thinking

Agreed. Years now. Why can't someone at MS just update the email template to exclude this? It offers nothing to the approval process except confusion.

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