Approval reminder - Multiple Approvers

[robofski]

Hi All,

I have a flow with an approval step where both approvers must approve to move forward. I'd like to add a reminder if the approval hasn't been completed but I only want to send the reminder to the approver who has NOT already completed the approval. All the suggestions I've seen would send a reminder to everyone on the approvers list even if they had completed their approval.

I think the issue is that in order to know the approver response I need to have my do until loop after the approval step, yet to send a reminder I need to be running something in parallel with the approval step.

Anyone have any ideas?

[Anonymous]

Hi @robofski ,

Can you do cascaded approval? after the first one then to the next one? I don't think there is a way to retrieve who hasn't approve it at the moment.

You can try connecting thru CDS and see if list of approvers and status of each will be there thru Approval ID, but I doubt there will be and you need premium license.

[MattWeston365 · Accepted solution]

Hi @robofski I have recently done this exact thing with someone I've been mentoring. I'm in the process of creating a video, so I'll hurry up and try to finish it off.

It basically starts from the automation which I've created in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mA5wiSusow

The difference is that my approvers are stored within a string, and are then removed from the string each time someone approves. I've attached the actual export to this post to get you going while I record it.

[robofski]

@Anonymousthanks for the feedback, I had thought that too just wanted to see if anyone had any other suggestions.  Appreciate the comment, at least I think I'm on the right track!

[robofski]

@MattWeston365Awesome thanks Matt, I'll take a look!

[robofski]

I'm a flow novice but I can understand what you're doing there, very creative, would never have come up with that on my own!

Excellent work @MattWeston365 

[MattWeston365]

Thanks @robofski if you need any further help please feel free to shout

[agustinmejiai]

Have you done the video yet. My approvals are made with "email with options" because I have to attach a file to it. But I would like to send a reminder to the person that hasn't approved yet.

[robofski]

Yes, I used Matts video posted above and got my approval reminders working.  Only thing to be mindful of is the flow keeps running until the reminder period times out even if there is no reminder to send but it’s a small price to pay for a great solution.

[hyp]

@MattWeston365 Hi Matt! Is this video available? Looking forward to it!

[ay2]

@MattWeston365 

Hi there, I've been following through with your flow and integrating it into my approval process, but I noticed something weird here, maybe I done something wrong, but it seems that it's not working the way it's expected. In my case, I send to 2 people to respond, BUT the initial approval will only send to 1 person. After a minute without responding, we BOTH get the reminder email, but I never got that initial request. After 5 minutes, my colleague responds, THEN I get that initial approval email for approve/response. Is there a particular part of the flow I should take a closer look at?

[dawah]

Did you solve this? I have the exact same situation.

[robofski]

This video shows how you can use the CDS to query who hasn't approved from a multi approver approval, very cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZupQ0AbDl0I&list=PLbnVz9lSb1K5i3xgjuPzTMD-I33H6Gaqf&index=2 

[dawah]

Thank you so much! It works!

The only downside is that CDS is a premium function and you need to pay 15$/month for each user. 

https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/

[robofski]

@dawah good point about the licensing, but you only need to license the account that is running the flow.  If you've got lots of users writing flows with this requirement then yep I could see it getting expensive! 

[zeeshanamit]

Have you made a video for this yet? Would really appreciate it. Especially an explanation on the expression you've used for the "If the user hasn't approved" condition! 

[Anonymous]

msdyn_flow_approvalresponseidx_approvalid eq '@{toUpper(body('Create_an_approval')?['name'])}' and owninguser/internalemailaddress eq '@{item()}'

using the above filter query remenider will sent to every one .it mean who approved the flow already getting email. please suggest how to fix 

[KritalParekh]

I am in the same boat, Anyone got solution to stop sending reminder emails to the approvers who already responded?

[akshaykumar]

I have created flow with below details and I am able to send reminders to users who has not responded.

1) Added all approvers email in array variable.

2) Added approval action for each user in 'apply to each' action with increased concurrency.

3) Created parallel branch of 'do until' action inside 'apply to each'  to send reminders to those users who has not responded.

4) Created SharePoint list 'Approval Tracking' with columns - Title and Status (text format).

5) Tracking the approval status from this SharePoint List and sending reminders to users.(I am sending 4 reminders)

Find attached exported copy of flow for more details and edit the 'delay' action period as per requirement. 

screenshot of SharePoint List.

[Ranaveni_Sathis]

Hi ,

Im working with one of my requirements that approval work flow ,

Where I want to remind the approvers if that have  didn't respond for approval action , I want to send reminder emails for every 48hours .

For I have added a parallel branch to wait for an approval action and do until action with variable approval complete is true 

1. Delay action of 48hours

2.condition of var approval complete is false

3. Send an email.

The problem I'm getting here is I have storing the approvers in an array an looping them in sequence way by incrementing the counter.

Making the approval complete variable false above create for approval action and setting true after the wait for approval action.

After first approval done , it is stopping the second approver for delay time which I have given,how to overcome it.

Can someone help me on these.Please