How to cancel the approval request?

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Posted on by yoshihirok

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I want to know how to cancel the approval request after a day,

for send the approval request to other person.

My scenario:

1 step, Send the approval request to a manager, and wait a day.

2 step, Send the approval request to other manager when no-response by first manager,

and cancel the approval request of 1 step.

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swhitmore 43 on at

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Sounds like something that could be solved with a Do-Until action

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yoshihirok 1,724 on at

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Hi, @swhitmore

I hope to cacel the send approval request,
so, I cannot solve the Do-Until.

If my flow send the request repleat, noisy.

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swhitmore 43 on at

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Sorry, I was not suggesting you put the entire approval flow inside a Do-Until, only the response condition @body('Start_an_approval')?['response']. Then set your timeout to 1 day.

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v-yamao-msft on at

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Hi @yoshihirok ,

It is not possible to cancel a pending approval from flow.

There is a similar request on Flow Ideas Forum, please vote the idea at here:

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Flow-Ideas/Create-a-way-to-remove-approval-cards-in-pending-send-requests/idi-p/112630?advanced=false&collapse_discussion=true&filter=location&location=idea-board:FlowIdeas&q=cancel%20approval&search_type=thread

By the way, please try if the following workaround will work for you.

Set the Timeout duration of the approval action as PT1D under Settings of the first approval action. Then configure Run after as “has timed out” for another approval action to send the request to another person.

Best regards,

Mabel

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Community Power Pla... on at

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I'm currently doing exactly that with a timeout. I'm frustrated that when an approval action times out, it doesn't dissappear from the approvals part of flow. This makes zero sense. I have to go in and approve or deny all of them for them to go away.

I either need automatic reminders for approvals, or for this feature to be corrected. If an approval times out, it should disappear from the flow approvals for the user.

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Community Power Pla... on at

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There is a way to cancel an approval request but it requires that the flow maker to have certain environment permissions. Approval requests are stored in the common data service in the Approvals entity. If you have write access to the entity then you can change the status of the Approval to inactive after it timesout. This will remove the request from thier queue.

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mj2 24 on at

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@Anonymous
Could you please write how to access CDS and cancel approval ? this would be very helpful. Or post some article/howto where this approach is documented.

thank a lot

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Community Power Pla... on at

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You access the CDS by using the Common Data Service List records connector. You enter the environment name and the Approval entity into the connector. This will give you all the approval records that are in the environment. Next you filter the returned array for the specific approval you are looking for. Then by using the CDS update record connector, use the iteminternalid as the record identifier and update the Status Reason Value to expired.

Please note, you must have sufficient privileges to update the CDS record.

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J_K_ 74 on at

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@v-yamao-msft
We are using the timeout option. But Power Automate behaves very unexpectedly. If a reminder is sent to the same person that caused the timeout, the person can't respond to the initial approval anymore (PA will state something like, "approval request has expired"), only to the "reminder" approval. This is perfectly fine for me. BUT, if the flow sends a new approval request to a DIFFERENT person, the first person can still respond to the request, but this respond is not taken into account by the flow, in our case, our SharePoint library is not updated, but the person will not know without checking the library. This is totally confusing!
A timed out approval request should always show an error message if person tries to respond to it after a timeout has occured.

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AndrzejSU 46 on at

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In the scenario you have described would it be useful to send an approval to both managers at once and expect answer only from one of them?
regards

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