Multiple Approver - Single Approval Status

[dave88]

Hey there,

I struggle with an workflow and hope you can help me out.

I have an approval process with multiple approvers. They are in a list column and will be read out trough an variable I've placed in that flow. Everyone receives the approval process and can approve/reject the item.

The big issue that I have is that in the flow history I see the status of who has approved or rejected it only when the approval process is finished. Everybody has approved or one of them has rejected.

But I need really urgent to know who exactly already has approved and who is still missing.

As long as some of the approvers hasnt touched the approval mail the flow loops in the approval part and it seems I cannot get the results that are already made.

Two more point I am curious about:

- Can I modify my workflow somehow that if I have for example 4 approvers, 3 already approved, and I change the remaining approver to a new user, that if I trigger the flow again that only the 'new' approver receives the flow (not everybody/users who already approved/rejected)? Is that somehow possible?

- I've read that in general a flow in a loop runs only for 30 days if no action happens. Can I extend the period?

- Whats the best approach to track errors from a workflow? Create 'run after' for every actions seems for me really complicated.

Thanks in advance for every help

and best Regards!!

[ScottShearer]

@dave88 :

First, you can use an approval escalation to have an approval timeout to cancel an approval.  Then a new approval action can be used to assign a new approval to a new user.

Examples can be found here.

If you have multiple approvers, you'll want to use multiple approval actions running as parallel actions in order to timeout on a specific approver.  

Please let me know if you need an example.

No Flow can run for more than 30 days including approvals.  No supported way around this.

Error handling is done exclusively via the run after settings.

If this answers your question, please mak you posst as Solved.

Scott

[dave88]

Hi @ScottShearer

an example would be great.

But you dont have a solution for the approval status tracking or its one of the mentioned ones and I dont get it?

I need so see somehow who of my 5 approvers had already approved, who is left - during the flow is still running.

Someone approved, I need to write his name into a column, wating for the next approver... something like this.

Thanks!

[ScottShearer]

@dave88:

I will provide an example.

Using parallel actions should allow you to see who has/has not taken action on an approval.

Scott

[dave88]

@ScottShearer cant wait for your example. I have really no clue how to solve this issue. Is 'Track Properties' maybe the way to go to get information out of the approval flow while its still running?

Appreciate your help!!

[ScottShearer]

@dave88 :

Here is an example of a Flow with parallel approvals.

Each approval is running as a parallel action.

I am using a variable to count the number of "Approve" decisions - you may/may not need to do this.

My last screen shot shows the Flow while running - you can see which approvals are complete and which are still running.

  

If this addresses your issue, please mark you post as solved.

Scott

[dave88]

Hi @ScottShearer - unfortunately I think this is not applicable on my situation.

Here is how my flow do look like:

My approvers will be written into a 'person' column in a list, therefore the variable.

So I need to get out of this single approval action the approve/reject actions taken into a new column.

In your case I would have to create multiple columns and write in each of them one approver, right? So I would have to limit the approver amount and its not really userfriendly.

Hope you know a way out of this. 'Tracked Properties' is not the way to go?

BR

[dave88]

Hey @ScottShearer,

In the meantime I've tried to replace the Approval into a Apply to each loop for the Approvers column.

It seems to make sense to do it that way, but does not work properly.

I wanted to start the approval for every approver and set the approval from 'everbody' to 'anyone'. After each approval then an entry into a column with the approver name 'approved by'. Unfortunately I receive multiple mails for one approver and cannot get the overall approval state when everybody has approved like in the 'everybody' approval.

I hope someone has at least a hint for me how to do that 🙂

BR

[Ingrid]

I have the same problem. 😑

@dave88Did you find a solution for your problem?