How to Track Multiple Approvers' Responses?

[yuruker]

Dear All,

I am currently building a multiple step / multiple user approval flow. At the last step of approval, I am extracting approver e-mails from the excel file. So, it is not always same amount of approvers. The problem is, I need to track their responses and if some of them forgets / misses the request, I need to send them a reminder. I don't need to add reminder to the flow, I can do it manually as well. But I can't track the status of approvals. Is there way to see who has approved and who has not? I am adding some screenshots for your attention. 

Please let me know if you can think of any workaround or solution. 

Thank you in advance for your time and attention. 

Best Regards,

Yigit Yürüker

[edgonzales]

@yuruker 

Hi there!

So, you can use the Common Data Service connnector (Premium) and look at the entities:  Approvals, Approval Requests, and Approval Responses.

By looking at the Approval ID, and matching that to the requests, and then looking at the responses, you can determine who has not responded.

Hope that helps, please keep us posted.

-Ed-

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[v-litu-msft]

Hi @yuruker,

You can create a SharePoint list to store Approver info and Approval status.

After send approval, create new items for each approver, store file name, set approval response status default as No, approval time, etc.

Create the Update item action after the approval Once the approver response, update the item. It should use this structure:

 PS. for send approval at the same time, you should open the concurrency control feature of the Apply to each, then set degree of parallelism just as you like.

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Lin Tu
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[yuruker]

Dear @edgonzales ,

Thank you for your answer! Unfortunately, we are not Premium users so I couldn't try your solution. Is there any workaround?

Please advise. 

Best Regards,

Yigit

[yuruker]

Hello @v-litu-msft 

It is very disappointing to receive such a reply from Community Support Team. I guess you had no idea what my problem really is. First of all, I would like to remind you that, my Approval type is "Everyone Must Approve". So, your solution idea of designing an approval "First to Respond" has already been failed. Also, as you might imagine, I am avoiding to place my approval in to an Apply to Each section, as I need all the responses, not the first response. Also, it won't hurt anyone to be able see more detailed screenshots and  if you spend more time on preparing a structured (better grammar, better use of command names, better explanation) reply, I had to spent almost 10 minutes just to understand what you are trying to tell me. If you need guidance of how it should be, this site has great amount of users who does a much better job from you are currently offering. I hope this message would be taken seriously in order to increase customer experience. If you are not going to provide a concrete solution, you don't have to write an answer. As mentioned, there are plenty of experienced and skilled users who can support me much better. 

I hope you can come up with a solution in the light of the things that have been highlighted above. 

I wish you a nice day. 

Best Regards,

Yigit Yürüker

[edgonzales]

@yuruker 

Ok, ya...I should have checked on licensing first.  How do you feel about keeping your own data someplace?  You could probably keep track of approvals sent in a SharePoint list or something, and then update that as responses come in.  Then, in a separate flow, you could check for a lack of responses on a scheduled (recurrence) trigger.

Let me know what you think.

-Ed-

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[yuruker]

Hello Again @edgonzales ,

That sounds very good but I tried to create such a SharePoint list and couldn't get individual responses to compare / track from overall approvers list. Do you have any ideas of how to build the mentioned flow? 

Best Regards,

Yigit

[edgonzales]

@yuruker 

So, the thing that is going to make this weird is the dynamic approvers (in number and name), right?  With the premium CDS connector, you have an easier way to manage that, but otherwise...like I said...maybe SP.

I asked around and someone suggested this video from Jon Levesque and Serge Luca.  It's not 100% what you need, but there are elements that might be helpful.  I think the tough part is going to be the responses.

Check out the video and see if that gets you closer, and we'll keep plugging away at it.

-Ed-

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[v-litu-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @yuruker,

So sorry for my rough explanation of my method and your misunderstanding about it.

I know exactly what your problem is and what you want to do.

My method is a structure that is sent to multiple approvers, and each approval request is a separate approval with the same title, details, and body, but different approver. Approval type of Start and wait for an approval action is First to respond is doesn't matter, because I store these emails address into an array, and the *Assigned to is appended current item of the Array, that is a separate email address, so it will be a single approver. 

Since the limit of Apply to each action setting, for each loops execute sequentially by default, override the default setting to customize the degree of parallelism should open the concurrency control. 

The reply I prepared is based on your actual situation because there will be differences in details in each post. Of course, I made the wrong estimate in your case, and that's my problem. Thank you for your advice and patience.

So, there is a SharePoint list I created to store approval list specifically, the Title is File ID, Response is Yes/No type and the default value is No:

This is the Flow created based on your situation, a simple version:

1. Initialize an array variable to store email addresses, the owner email, manager email, etc. And then use the Appen to array variable action to input it.

2. Loop the email addresses by using the Apply to each, before sending the approval to the approver, create an item in the approval list, put in File ID and Approver. Of cause, you can add other columns just like request time, file name, etc.

3. After the approval, update the item just created, send the Response to Yes, add the approval time into it, also the comments will be better.

 4. Last but most important, open the Concurrency Control:

Test result:

Before response-

After response: 

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Lin Tu
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