Approval Flow Reminder does not stop as soon as variable is met

[james1812]

Hi there, 

I have created an approval email reminder in my flow, however, when the variable is met the email reminder is still sent once more before it stops. Is there a step I am missing? 

Any help will be greatly appreciated 🙂 

[ChadVKealey · Accepted solution]

The variable is evaluated before the delay, so the way you have it set up, it will ALWAYS send another reminder even after it's "Complete". You need to add a Condition just above the send email step to re-check the variable value (after the delay) to see if the reminder still needs to be sent. Alternately, you could add a "Terminate" step at the end of the Approval branch. That will "kill" the flow when it's complete, effectively preventing the reminder from sending. I usually do both (which is unnecessary, but I'm a "belt & suspenders" kind of guy).

[james1812]

Ah amazing, this works, thank you very much! 

[ChadVKealey]

Not a problem. BTW, as useful as reminders are, they're more meaningful when there is a "default" outcome that will be applied if the approval isn't complete. For example, in the leave approval process I built for our department, if the user's manager doesn't specifically "Approve" the request within 29 days, the request is marked as "Rejected". I send 4 "regular" reminders, 6 days apart, then a "final" reminder on day 28. All reminders indicated "The request will be marked as Rejected if not specifically Approved by [approval_deadline]" and the "final" reminder uses slightly more urgent language. 

Also, if you use the newer "Create an approval" action (rather than the "Start and wait for an approval"), one of the outputs is a "response link", which will take the user directly to that specific approval object. That makes it a whole lot easier to direct them where to go to "complete" the process. Note that with that action, you need a separate "Wait for approval" action to "catch" the response when they make it.