Apply to each for Approvals: send out many approvals in parallel

[katonage]

Although apply to each has a setting for changing between parallel and sequential mode it does not seem to work with approvals.

I think it is a key function of flows to be able to send out many approvals - confirmation for meny individuals.

However approval (or send email with options and send approval mail actions) seem to process such a scenario in a sequential manner. (sending out the approval mail just afer answering the previous..)

See also:

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/I-Found-A-Bug/Apply-for-each-Parallel-for-approvals/m-p/57357#M1...

[BridgetZ]

This might help. It helped me solve my issue. I wanted to have an approval go to 2 people at the same time and then wait until both people approved to move to the next step. This allows me to send 2 seperate approval emails at the same time and wait for both of their responses.

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Flows/Approval-Process-multiple-approvals-required/m-p/...

[katonage]

Thank you, I know this. There is also a "whitepaper" formatted nice description of this.

This unfortunately works only for a small and a-priori known number of approvals.

You can't send out a large number of approvals to a list of peope, e.g. to everybody in a group.

(I' was also thinking on sending this out via Forms, but Forms connector does not support yet to create a form, just to harvest replies. I guess there is already an idea also for that...) 

Besides, this shortcoming really contradicts the marketed features (parallel/sequential switch) of the Apply for Each loop.

[CJH]

I think this feature would be really useful- I've got exactly the same challenge with one of my flows where a list of approvers is generated outside flows and I need to send approvals to everyone on the list at the same time. Plus, I need users to be able to see what the replies are from approvers as they come in.

Given that the number of approvers could be 20 or more (and could change frequently), it just doesn't seem feasible to use parallel flows to do this.

Adding the ability to Apply To Each in parallel would be ideal.

[katonage]

Any update here?

[ChristianL]

I also need this functionality! The approver task should be sent out in parallel and then wait for the first reply.

The problem I have is that I always have two approvers (one main approver and one for backup in case the first approver is sick or on holiday). If the main approver is sick or on holiday the approver task will never come to the backup approver since the main approver is not able to provide the first response.