Adaptive Card (from Create an approval (V2) action) format question

[ChadVKealey]

So, I've been playing around with the V2 Approval actions and noticed that the Create an approval (V2) action has an output that is "Adaptive Card". For a long time, I've been looking for a way to resend an actual Approval email as a reminder. Currently, I'm sending the Approver a link to the Approvals > Received page in Flow, which works, but isn't perfect. What would be perfect is resending the actual actionable message/adaptive card. 

What I've tried is using the generic Mail connector to send the reminder and adding the "Adaptive Card" dynamic data to the message body. What I get is this:

So, clearly this is not HTML. I think it's JSON, but not sure. I'm even less sure how I could go about adding it into an email. I assume the original/actual Approval message has a header or tag that goes around that to format it appropriately, so I either need a way to include that in the HTML message or we need a new action ("Send approval notification") that takes the Approval ID of the Created approval.

[Pstork1]

That is definately JSON.  But I would encourage you not to try to resend the actual Adaptive card since that may have some side effects on the Approval that is already out there.  But you can definately parse the JSON to get information about the flow out of the card to send in a reminder.  But I would then provide a link back to the original approval rather than provide a copy of the approval itself.  Here's an article on how to parse the JSON in Flow.

[ChadVKealey]

@Pstork1 , there is also a "Response Link" output which can be used to get the Approver directly to the specific Approval in Flow, so there's no parsing of the JSON needed. However,I think it would still be better to provide the same exact content as the original message. I mean, part of what we're using to sell this process to folks is that they can complete the Approval entirely from their mailbox. Sending them off somewhere else kind of goes against that symplicity. 

However, for the time being, I guess the direct response link is better than the general link to Flow.

On a slightly different topic, it would be fantastic if documentation were provided on the new "V2" Approval actions. I know the capabilities in Flow are growing pretty rapidly, but folks like us still need information about how the new features work in order to properly use them. I'm used to just experimenting with them to figure it out, but don't always have the time to do that, let alone explain to others who want to use these tools.

[Pstork1]

Essentially, the V2 actions are the same as the original actions.  The only real difference is that the V2 approvals can be cancelled from inside the Flow console, while the originals cannot.

[ChadVKealey]

Not exactly. There was previously only one Approval action: Start and wait for an approval. Now, there is a V2 of that, plus two additional actions: Create an approval (V2) and Wait for an approval (V2). At least, that's all that are showing up as available actions in Flow. While it doesn't make a lot of sense to label those two additional ones as "V2" if there never was a "V1", I guess that's what they did. Or, they deleted/deactivated the V1 versions. More than likely, I think they used that designation to indicate that they were of the same "generation" as the Start and wait for an approval (V2).

EDIT: These additional actions have some unique inputs/outputs that seem to lay the groundwork for some other capabilities, like sending Approvals via Teams (using the Flow bot and the adaptive card), canceling Approvals and (hopefully) a way to resend the original Approval message.

[StefanR]

Hi @ChadVKealey,

I have exact the same problem using the adaptive card content in Teams.

I found out, that double quotes around the datetime values are responsible for my problem:

I have tested this with the adaptive card designer. It shows me an error at exact that position where the double quotes are:

And this is the output of the adaptive card in Teams at position 1233::

When replacing all "" with " by hand, it works well.

I have tried to replace all "" by using the replace-function in Flow, but it seems that it will only replace the first apperance of a string.

So i don't have a solution right now. 😞

Best regards

Stefan

[Pstork1]

The two additional actions are just an Asynchronoous verson of the Start and Wait action that splits the Approval in half.  That way you can create an Approval, do other things, and then wait for the Approval to come back.  With Start and Wait there is no option to do other things after starting an approval until it returns.  The Create Action adn the Wait action only work if you use them in a pair.

[bu11frogg]

@StefanR,

Are you using the specific "adaptive card" actions for Teams?  For me, those function correctly, but users don't want approvals via Teams, so I'm looking for a way to send those adaptive cards via email.  I guess we just have to wait for "adaptive cards for email" Flow Actions!

[StefanR]

Hi @bu11frogg,

please excuse me for my late response!

That's exactly what was wrong in my case!

The Problem was sitting before the computer, not in it. 😉

And I was so sure to take the right action....

OffTopic:

in my scenario there is an approval / management team that has to approve videos with some safety work content, located in Stream. The Marketing and Communications Department produces the videos, the approval team, responsible for all this safety stuff, has to approve the video in Teams. After approval all colleagues got a Teams-Message "Here, please watch this Video and do a small exercise with Forms afterwards". Then the a Flow picks all the results and send auto created PDF-Certificates to all the people that passes the execise. 

So, thank you very much!! 🙂

Best regards

Stefan