Send approval/rejection email for SharePoint List

[DrishM13]

Hi, 

I have the following flow which works - allows an item to be added to a SharePoint list and if you add a name in the "Approver" column it will send that user an email to either accept/reject the item.

I have it set up that the "Approval/reject comments", "Approval date" and "sign-off status" is all updated automatically within the flow.

However, is it possible that the "author" which is a "read-only" field (who created the item on the list) cannot be added into the "Approver column"? Some sort of restriction to be added on that field itself? Not sure if to add that into the list itself or a restriction in the flow?

[Pstork1 · Accepted solution]

There is no way to add that restriction to the field itself.  But if you set the approvers field using a variable you can definitely use a condition to check the variable for the author's email address before adding it to the approvers field.

[DrishM13]

Hi @Pstork1 - thank you for that.

So I would need to add another "initialize variable" field to my flow or "set variable" field? 
If you have a look at the flow, where would you suggest that to be as I am not too sure of the logic?

Thanks. 

[Pstork1]

That depends on how you are filling in the Assigned to field in the start and wait for an approval action now.  If you are doing it directly, then yes add a string variable above the start and wait for approval and add the emails to that as a semicolon delimited string.  Then add a condition to test whether that variable 'Contains' the author's email.  If it doesn't then use the variable in the Assigned to field of the approval.  If it does then do something like send an email to the author that they can't approve their own items.