How to send the same email with options and no options, or restrict who can select the options?

[AD4Kguy]

Hello,

Still new to this but getting the hang of it. I have a form that needs to be sent to two managers, one to approve and one to be made aware. I want only a certain person to be able to approve whats in the email but the other person needs to know its been sent. Ive worked out how to do email with options and how to get the response but not sure if the former is possible

Thanks for any and all help!

[Andrew_J]

@AD4Kguy 

You need to look at using a paralle branch in your flow, one that sends the email with options and the other to send to the person that needs to be aware

I hope that makes sense to you.

Andrew

[AD4Kguy]

Hello,

Thought that might be the case! Another dumb question I have im sure, if Im doing this how will split the multiple emails. So if option a send to person 1 and 2

and option b send to 1 and 3 

how do I split 1 and 3 or 1 and 2?

[Andrew_J]

@AD4Kguy 

Firstly no question is dumb, it jiust a question and I am going to need to question you now ot fully understand your process, so here goes.

In your first question you talk about a form, how is the process of sending this form started. 

Do you use a SharePoint List for this process. 

Are Person One to Three internal or external

Which out of Person one to three is the approver.

Which out of Person one to three needs to only see the information

I hope you are able to provide answers for the above.

Andrew

[AD4Kguy]

Hello,

The form is just sent out as needed.

User will request something which can only be authorised by Person ONE, they will need all the information to be seen.

The Variable is Person 2-100 who need to be aware of both the request and the answer but cannot authorise the request, but again should be able to see the full information of the request.

So Person ONE will always get the request, but depending on the choice selected the email will also be sent too someone else to be made aware of this.

I like to try and problem solve so I think I know what needs to be done?

So I think I branch before Compose. One Compose which sends email with options to Person ONE. Another compose which sends emails based on choices made to Person 2-100 (Depending on choice)

So now brings me to my next question (And Im so sorry for this) Once Person 1 Has approved, this approval will get sent to department for action, but also will need to be sent to Person 2-100(Depending on choice) 

Im sure I can work this out! But any nudges would be great

[Andrew_J]

@AD4Kguy 

Okay I now see how this works in part, but I am keen to see if my suggestion would work for you as I think we can streamline this for you and make it better.  As at the moment it is not flowing in my mind.  The mains issue is how the flow starts and then goes through the approval pocess.

Firstly I would like to suggest that you create a M365 Group for the users 2-100 as I think that would help.  I also think you need a SharePoint List as if you are sending out multiple requests to approve you need something to record the process of user1 as tracking down everthing from an email point of view might take a long time.  And a SharePoint List will help speed up the process for you, if it is you monitoring this aspect.  It will make you look good too in front of User1 if they say did I approve that, you could come back in minutes instead of hours.

I am not sure about your statment "I want only a certain person to be able to approve whats in the email" this is saying to me there is a manual part of the process.  For the Approvals process to work you need to be inputing information into the SharePoint List to generate the Approval Automation.  Then as I said above recording the outpust of the approval back into the SharePoint List.  Using as you then go on to say "Ive worked out how to do email with options" is not the way to run an Automated approval process and getting those options back to then drive the rest of the flow might be possible but I am not sure how to do it.

But getting back to your last paragraph this will all be down to the Appoval of User1, but using the SharePoint List you can refrence back to the output of the Approval.  And in doing so drive the rest of the flow forward to the other departments.

All of this can be done, it is just the intal part of the Flow that needs some thought.  I know it is your process, but do users2-100 all really need to see everything, it seems a lot of email traffic and not knowing the size of the information being sent it could quite easily fill peoples Inboxes up.   

Still happy to help but it would be good to see some screenshots of the flow as this would hepl me to understand what you are doing and be able to advise.

Andrew

[AD4Kguy]

Hello,

I will have to screen shot when I am home as current set up isn't the best! Ive been learning from youtube videos so Im sure its all incorrect!

When I said certain people to click approve. The approval email goes to two people but only one has access to click approve, but both parties see it

I might be able to clarify things a bit easier in the meantime

-The actual form its self will be available on a SharePoint for staff to access and request courses.

-At the end of the form they need to click their department, there could be 40 different departments

-The request will then go to the approver (Person 1) and the line manager of the staff member (We have up to 15 line managers who all manage different people in different departments and this can change) But person 1 will always be the same person

-If the approve has been clicked, the member of staff who requested, the line manager and accounts will receive an email to let them know this has been accepted with the form details presented 

Im scared to say, I dont understand lists and how it factors in, ive tried looking at training material but in reality it doesnt help much. Im a very quick learn if I have the right material. I would love to be able to see this all in action in lists!

Again Im sorry to be very new to this, but Ive had a hell of a time learning the last 2 days and I think this could be a major thing for us.

Later on down the line, Id like the information to automatically go to a spread sheet.

[Andrew_J]

@AD4Kguy 

That is a nice lot of information to work on and I shall try and help where I can.  The the process I think you need in simple for is as follows

• So staff fill out a MS Form
• Responses saved to a SharePoint List
• Requests sent to managment to approve using standard MS approval process
• Should approval be given the send to other departments

Even though I have reached the status I have in the Forum, a flow of this type is not something I would tackle even now after five or more years using it. 

I think you need to start off small and then scale, your MS Form should not be too long, but bear in mind if the users filling it out is internal that it will record their user data automatically such as their email address.  The form needs to shared or what is known a Group Form, this could relate to only one department to make the rest of the flow easier to impliment.

The Sharepoint List will be key to this for your managment which could cover all 40 departments in the end but again start off small.  Little tricks I have learnt over the years has been to avoid the use of SPACES in the column names.  You may or will need to keep adding columns until you have all you need.  Dates are an issue but can be overcome.  Times can also be problimatic, even for me coming from the UK and the change from GMT to BST.  I much prefer a SharePoint List to that of Excel but I am learning some basics of Excel at the moment.  Try to limit the choice fields and multi selects, these can complicate the flow but sometime

The approval process needs to be quick for User1,  these will be delivered to Teams and via email if you use the built in approval process within M365.  I personally would want eveything to be presented to me on one screen and not wanting to open a PDF with information on to read, perhaps I am lazy that way.  You will need to look at what happen if the request is denide, the person requesting the training will need to be told.  Get the flow working with some dummy text then finalise this later.

Use Paralle Branches where information needs to go two or more ways.  And then maybe requires two different filters etc.  Use the Switch & Cases, if  a User select say ITEM1 in a multi select then this can process everthing for ITEM1 that may have specifc wording where as ITEM2-Many might have different wording or information for all parties. 

Remember a SharePoint list will be better for recoding the information.  It will enable you to ammend things.  If you do ammend things then the flow needs to start again.  In my opinion stay way from excel.  

I am going to stop now on this query as I think I am going too far.  Happy to help further so do add me to a future post if you think you like the help I have given you so far.

Finally good luck and do not let others rush you.

Regards,

Andrew